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ostromo

Joseph Conrad

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- n ^ J

NOSTROMO

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1924

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BOOKS BY JOSEPH CONRAD

-ALM AVER'S FOLLY

AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS
vTHE NIGGER OF THE "NARCISSUS*

TALES OF UNREST y

LORD JIM: A ROMANCE vT
-YOUTH: A NARRATIVE

TYPHOON

FALK, AND OTHER STORIES
-NOSTROMO: A TALE OF THE SEABOARD

THE MIRROR OF THE SEA

THE SECRET AGENT

A SET OF SIX

UNDER WESTERN EYES

A PERSONAL RECORD

'TWIXT LAND AND SEA

CHANCE

WITHIN THE^TIDES

VICTORY ^

THE SHADOW-LINE

THE ARROW OF GOLD

THE RESCUE

NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS

THE ROVER

WITH FORD M. HUEFFER

MNCE: A NOVEL

NHERITORS: AN EXTRAVAGANT

E OF A CRIME

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NOSTROMO

A TALE OF THE SEABOARD

BY
JOSEPH CONRAD

** So foul a sky clears not without a storm."

— Shakispiaki

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1924

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• • • • »

• • • •*

9 •

COPYUGHT, 192 1, BT
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

COPYKIGBT, 1904, BY BAKPBR ft BROTHERS

PRIHTED IM THE UMITBD tTATEA

THE COUHTRT LIPE PRBM. CAROBH CITT. M. T.

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TO
JOHN GALSWORTH.Y.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

"NosTROMo" is the most anxiously meditated of the
fonger novels which belong to the period following upon
the publication of the "Typhoon" volume of short
stories.

I don't mean to say that I became then conscious of
any impending change in my mentality and in my atti-
tude towards the tasks of my writing life. And perhaps
there was never any change, except in that mysterious,
extraneous thing which has nothing to do with the
theories of art; a subtle change in the nature of the
inspiration; a phenomenon for which I can not in any
way be held responsible. What, however, did cause me
some concern was that after finishing the last story of
the "Typhoon" volume it seemed somehow that there
was nothing more in the world to write about.

This so strangely negative but disturbing mood
lasted some little time; and then, as with many of my
longer stories, the first hint for "Nostromo" canae to
me in the shape of a vagrant anecdote completely des-
titute of valuable details.

As a matter of fact in 1875 or '6, when very young, in
the West Indies or rather in the Gulf of Mexico, for my
contacts with land were short, few, and fleeting, I heard
the story of some man who was supposed to have stolen
single-handed a whole Ughter-fuU of silver, somewhere

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viii AUTHOR'S NOTE

on the Tierra Firme seaboard during the troubles of a
revolution.

On the face of it this was something of a feat. But I
heard no details; and having no particular interest in
crime qua crime I was not likely to keep that one in my
my mind. And I forgot it till twenty -six or seven years
afterwards I came upon the very thing in a shabby-
volume picked up outside a second-hand book-shop. It
was the Ufe story of an American seaman written by
himself with the assistance of a journalist. In the
course of his wanderings that American sailor worked
for some months on board a schooner, the master and
owner of which was the thief of whom I had heard in
my very young days. I have no doubt of that because
there could hardly have been two exploits of that pecu-
liar kind in the same part of the world and both con-
nected with a South American revolution.

The fellow had actually managed to steal a lighter
with silver, and this, it seems, only because he was ita-
pHcitly trusted by his employers, who must have been
singularly poor judges of character. In the sailor's
story he is represented as an unmitigated rascal, a small
cheat, stupidly ferocious, morose, of mean appearance,
and altogether unworthy of the greatness this oppor-
tunity had thrust uEK)n him. What was interesting
was that he would boast of it openly.

He used to say: "People think I make a lot of
moriey in this schooner of mine. But that is nothing.
I don't care for that. Now and then I go away quietly
and lift a bar of silver. I must get rich slowly — ^you
understand."

There was also another curious point about the man.
Once in the course of some quarrel the sailor threatened
him: "What's to prevent me reporting ashore what
you have told me about that silver? "

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AUTHOR'S NOTE ix

The cynical ruflSan was not alarmed in the least. He
actually laughed. "You fool, if you dare talk like that
on shore about me you will get a knife stuck in your
back. Every man, woman, and child in that port is
my friend. And who's to prove the Ughter wasn't
sunk? I didn't show you where the silver is hidden.
DidI? So you know nothing. And suppose I Ued? Eh?"

Ultimately the sailor, disgusted with the sordid mean-
ness of that impenitent thief, deserted from the schooner.
The whole episode takes about three pages of his
autobiography. Nothing to speak of; but as I looked
them over, the curious confirmation of the few casual
words heard in my early youth evoked the memories
of that distant time when everything was so fresh, so
surprising, so venturesome, so interesting; bits of strange
coasts under the stars, shadows of hills in the sunshine,
men's passions in the dusk, gossip half-forgotten, faces
grown dim. . . . Perhaps, perhaps, there still was
in the world something to write about. Yet I did not
see anything at first in the mere story. A rascal steals
a large parcel of a valuable conmiodity — so people say.
It's either true or untrue; and in any case it has no
value in itself. To invent a circumstantial account of
the robbery did not appeal to me, because my talents
not running that way I did not think that the game was
worth the candle. It was only when it dawned upon
me that the purloiner of the treasure need not neces-
sarily be a confirmed rogue, that he could be even a man
of character, an actor and possibly a victim in the
changing scenes of a revolution, it was only then that
I had the first vision of a twilight country which was
to become the province of Sulaco, with its Idgh shadowy
Sierra and its misty Campo for mute witnesses of events
flowing from the passions of men short-sighted in good
and evil.

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jL AUTHOR'S NOTE

Such are in very truth the obscure origins of "Nos-
tromo" — ^the book. From that moment, I suppose,
it had to be. Yet even then I hesitated, as if warned
by the instinct of self-preservation from venturing on a
distant and toilsome journey into a land full of intrigues
and revolutions. But it had to be done.

It took the best part of the years 1903-4 to do; with
many intervals of renewed hesitation, lest I should lose
myself in the ever-enlarging vistas opening before me
as I progressed deeper in my knowledge of the country.
Often, also, when I had thought myself to a standstill
over the tangled-up affairs of the Republic, I would,
figuratively speaking, pack my bag, rush away from
Sulaco for a change of air and write a few pages of the
"Mirror of the Sea." But generally, as I've said be-
fore, my sojourn on the Continent of Latin America,
famed for its hospitality, lasted for about two years.
On my return I found (speaking somewhat in the style
of Captain Gulliver) my family all well, my wife heartily
glad to learn that the fuss was all over, and our small
boy considerably grown during my absence.

My principal authority for the history of Costaguana
is, of course, my venerated friend, the late Don Jose
Avellanos, Minister to the Courts of England and Spain,
etc., etc., in his impartial and eloquent "History of Fifty
Years of Misrule." That work was never published —
the reader will discover why — and I am in fact the only
person in the world possessed of its contents. I have
mastered them in not a few hours of earnest meditation,
and I hope that my accuracy will be trusted. In justice
to myself, and to allay the fears of prospective readers,
I beg to point out that the few historical allusions are
never dragged in for the sake of parading my unique
erudition, but that each of them is closely related to
actuality; either throwing a Ught on the nature of cur-

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AUTHOR'S NOTE xi

rent events or affecting directly the fortunes of the
people of whom I speak.

As to their own histories I have tried to set them
down, Aristocracy and People, men and women, Latin
and Anglo-Saxon, bandit and politician, with as cool a
hand as was possible in the heat and clash of my own
conflicting emotions. And after all this is also the
story of their conflicts. It is for the reader to say how
far they are deserving of interest in thfeir actions and
in the secret purposes of their hearts revealed in the
bitter necessities of the time. I confess that, for me,
that time is the time of firm friendships and unf orgotten
hospitahties. And in my gratitude I must menticm ,
here Mrs. Gould, "the first lady of Sulaco," whom we )
may safely leave to the secret devotion of Dr. Mony- 1
gham, and Charies Gould, the Idealist-creator of Ma- ^
terial Interests whom we must leave to his Mine —
from which there is no escape in this world.

About Nostromo, the second of the two racially and
socially contrasted men, both captured by the silver of
the San Tom6 Mine, I feel bound to say something
more.

I did not hesitate to make that central figure an Ital-
ian. First of all the thing is perfectly credible : Italians
were swarming into the Occidental Province at the
time, as anybody who will read further can see; and
secondly, there was no one who could stand so well by
the side of Giorgio Viola the Garibaldino, the Idealist
of the old, humanitarian revolutions. For myself I
needed there a Man of the People as free as possible
from his class-conventions and all settled modes of
thinking. This is not a side snarl at conventions. My
reasons were not moral but artistic. Had he been an
Anglo-Saxon he would have tried to get into local poli-
tics. But NoStromo does not aspire to be a leader in a

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xu AUTHOR'S NOTE

f>ersonal game. He does not want to raise himself
above the mass. He is content to feel himself a power
—within the People.

But mainly Nostromo is what he is because I re-
ceived the inspiration for him in my early days from a
Mediterranean sailor. Those who have read certain
pages of mine will see at once what I mean when I say
that Dominic, the padrone of the Tremolino^ might under
given circumstances have been a Nostromo. At any
rate Dominic would have understood the younger man
perfectly — if scornfully. He and I were engaged to-
gether in a rather absurd adventure, but the absurdity
does not matter. It is a real satisfaction to think that
in my very young days there must, after all, have been
something in me worthy to command that man's half-
bitter fidelity, his half-ironic devotion. Many of Nos-
tromo's speeches I have heard first in Dominic's voice.
His hand on the tiller and his fearless eyes roaming the
horizon from within the monkish hood shadowing his
face, he would utter the usual exordium of his remorse-
less wisdom: "Vous autres gentilhommes!" in a caus-
tic tone that hangs on my ear yet. Like Nostromo!
"You hombres finos!" Very much like Nostromo.
But Dominic the Corsican nursed a certain pride of
ancestry from which my Nostromo is free; for Nos-
tromo's lineage had to be more ancient still. He is a
man with the weight of coimtless generations behind
him and no parentage to boast of. . . . Like the
People.

In his firm grip on the earth he inherits, in his im-
providence and generosity, in his lavishness with his
gifts, in his manly vanity, in the obscure sense of his
greatness and in his faithful devotion with something
despairing as well as desperate in its impulses, he is a
Man of the People, their very own unenvious force-

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AUTHOR'S NOTE xiii

disdaining to lead but ruling from within. Years after-
wards, grown older as the famous Captain Fidanza,
with a stake in the country, going about his many affairs
followed by respectful glances in the modernized streets
of Sulaco, calling on the widow of the cargador, attend-
ing the Lodge, listening in unmoved silence to anarchist
si)eeches at the meeting, the enigmatical patron of the
new revolutionary agitation, the trusted, the wealthy
comrade Fidanza with the knowledge of his moral ruin
locked up in his breast, he remains essentially a Man
of the People. In his mingled love and scorn of life and
in the bewildered conviction of having been betrayed,
of dying betrayed he hardly knows by what or by whom,
he is still of the People, their undoubted Great Man —
with a private history of his own.

One more figure of those stirring times I would like to
mention: and that is Antonia Avellanos — ^the "beautiful
Antonia." Whether she is a possible variation of Latin-
American girlhood I wouldn't dare to affirm. But, for
me, she is. Always a little in the backgroimd by the
side of her father (my venerated friend) I hope she has
yet relief enough to make intelligible what I am going
to say. Of all the people who had seen with me the
birth of the Occidental Republic, she is the only one
who has kept in my memory the aspect of continued
life. Antonia the Aristocrat and Nostromo the Man of
the People are the artisans of the New Era, the true
creators of the New State; he by his legendary and dar-
ing feat, she, like a woman, simply by the force of what
she is: the only being capable of inspiring a sincere
passion in the heart of a trifler.

K anything could induce me to revisit Sulaco (I
should hate to see all these changes) it would be An-
tonia. And the true reason for that — why not be frank
about it? — ^the true reason is that I have modelled her

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xiv AUTHOR'S NOTE

on my first love. How we, a band of tallish schoolboys,
the chums of her two brothers, how we used to look
up to that girl just out of the schoolroom herself, as the
standard-bearer of a faith to which we all were bom but
which she alone knew how to hold aloft with an un-
flinching hope! She had perhaps more glow and less
serenity in her soul than Antonia, but she was an un-
compromising Puritan of patriotism with no taint of the
slightest worldliness in her thoughts. I was not the
only one in love with her; but it was I who had to hear
ofteilest her scathing criticism of my levities — very
much like poor Decoud — or stand the brunt of her aus-
tere, unanswerable invective. She did not quite im-
derstand — ^but never mind. That afternoon when I
came in, a shrinking yet defiant sinner, to say the final
good-bye I received a hand-squeeze that made my heart
leap and saw a tear that took my breath away. She was
softened at the last as though she had suddenly per-
ceived (we were such children still!) that I was really
going away for good, going very far away — even as far
as Sulaco, lying unknown, hidden from our eyes in the
darkness of the Placid Gulf.

That's why I long sometimes for another ghmpse of the
"beautiful Antonia" (or can it be the Other?) moving in
the dimness of the great cathedral, saying a short prayer
at the tomb of the first and last Cardinal-Archbishop of
Sulaco, standing absorbed in filial devotion before the
monument of Don Jose Avellanos, and, with a lingering,
tender, faithful glance at the medallion-memorial to
Martin Decoud, going out serenely into the simshine of
the Plaza with her upright carriage and her white head;
a relic of the past disregarded by men awaiting im-
patiently the Dawns of other New Eras, the coming of
more Revolutions.

But this is the idlest of dreams; for I did understawl

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AUTHOR'S NOTE xv

perfectly well at the time that the moment the breath
left the body of the Magnificent Capataz, the Man of
the People, freed at last from the toils of love and
wealth, there was nothing more for me to do in Sulaco.

J. Co

Odoh&r, 1917,

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CONTENTS

PART FIRST
The Silver op the Mine .

PART SECOND

The Isabels 135

PART THIRD

The Lighthouse . . , 307

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PART FIRST
THE SILVER OF THE MINE

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NOSTROMO

CHAPTER ONE

In the time of Spanish rule, and for many years after-
wards, the town of S ulaco — ^the luxuriant beauty of the
orange gardens b^rs witness to its antiquity — had
never been conunercially anything more important than
a coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides
and indigo. The clumsy deep-sea galleons of the con-
querors that, needing a brisk gale to move at all, would
lie becalmed, where your modem ship built on clippgr
lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of her sails, had
been barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing calms of its
vast gulf. Some harbours of the earth are made dif-
ficult of access by the treachery of sunken rocks and the
tempests of their shores. Sulaco had foimd an in-
violable sanctuary from the temptations of a trading
world in the sole^m hy^h of the deep Golf o Placido as if
within an enormous semi-circular and unroofed temple
open to the ocean, with its walls of lofty moimtams
hung with the mourning draperies of cloud.

On one side of this broad curve in the straight sea-
board of the Republic of Costaguana, the last spur of
the coast ragge forms an insignificant cape whose name
is Punta Mala. From the middle of the gulf the point
of the land itself is not visible at all; but the shoulder of
a st^p hill at the back can be made out faintly like a
shadow on the sky.

On the other side, what seems to be an isolated patch

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4 NOSTROMO

of blue mist floats lightly on the glare of the horizon.
This is the peninsula of Azuera, a wild chaos of sharp
rocks and stony levels cut about by vertical ravines. It
lies far out to sea like a rough head of stone stretched
from a green-clad coast at the end of a slender neck of
^nd covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Utterly
waterless, for the rainfall runs oflf at once on all sides
into the sea, it has not soil enough — it is said — to grow
a single blg^de of grass, as if it were blighted by a cureg.
(The poor, associating by an obscure instinct of con-
'solation the ideas of evil and wealth, will tell you that
it is deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The
common folk of the neighbourhood, peons of the
estancias, vaqueros of the seaboard plains, tame Indians
coming miles to market with a bundle of sugar-cane
or a basket of mgjze worth about threepence, are well
aware that heaps of shining gold lie in the gloom of the
deep precipices clewing the stony levels of Azuer^.
Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden timehad
perished in the search. The story goes also that within
men's memory two wandering sailors — ^Americanos,
perhaps, but griggos of some sort for certain — ^talked
over a gambling, good-for-nothing mjpzo, and the three
stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks,
a water-skin, and provisions enough to last a few days.
Thus accompanied, and with revolvers at their belts,
they had started to chop their way with machetes
through the thqpiy scrub on the neck of the peninsula.
On the second evening an upright spiral of smoke (it
could only have been from their camp-fire) was seen for
the first time within memory of man standing up faintly
upon the sky above a ra^or-backed rijjge on the stony
head. The crgw of a coasting schooner, lying becalmed
three miles off the shore, stared at it with amazement
till dark. A negro fisherman, living in a lonely hut in a

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THE SILVER OP THE MINE 5

little bay near by, had seen the start and was on the look-
out for some sign. He called to his wife just as the sun
was about to set. • They had watched the strange por-
^figt with envy, incredulity, and ai^c-

The impious adventurers gave no other sign. The
sailors, the Indian, and the stolen burro were never
seen again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco man — ^his wife
paid for some masses, and the poor four-footed beast,
being without sin, had been probably permitted to die;
but the two gringos, spectral and alive, are believed to
be dwelling to this day amongst the rocks, under tho
fatal spell of their success. Their souls cannot tear
themselves away from their bodies mounting guard over
the discovered treasure. They are now rich and hun-
gry and thirsty — a strange theory of tenacious gringo
ghosts suffering in their starved and parched flesh of
defiant heretics, where a Christian would have re-
nounced and been released.

These, then, are the legendary inhabitants of Azuera
guarding its forbidden wealth; and the shadow on the
sky on one side with the roimd pajch of blue haze
blurring the bright skirt of the horizon on the other,
mark the two outermost points of the bend which bears
the name of Golfo Placido, because never a strong
wind had been known to blow upon its waters.

On crossing the imaginary line drawn from Pimta
Mala to Azuera the ships from Europe bound to Sulaco
lose at once the strong breezes of the ocean. They be-
come the prey of capricious airs that play with them for
thirty hours at a stretch sometimes. Before them the
head of the calm gulf is filled on most days of the year
by a great body of motionless and opaque clouds. On
the rare clear mornings another shadow is cast upon the
sweep of the gulf. The dawn breaks high behind the
towering and serrated wall of the Cordillera, a clear-cut

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G NOSTROMO

vision of dark peaks rearing their steep slopes on a lofty
pedestal of forest rising from the very edge of the shore.
Amongst them the white head of Higuerota rises
majestically upon the blue. Bare clusters of enormous
rocks sprinkle with tiny black dots the smooth dome of
snow.

Then, as the midday sim withdraws from the gulf
the shadow of the mountains, the clouds begin to roll
out of the lower valleys. They swathe in sombre
tatters the naked crags of precipices above the wooded
slopes, hide the peaks, smoke in stormy trails across the
snows of Higuerota. The Cordillera is gone from you
as if it had dissolved itself into great piles of grey and
black vapours that travel out slowly to seaward and
vanish into thin air all along the front before the bla;^ng
heat of the day. The wasting edge of the cloud-bank
always strives for, but seldom wins, the middle of the
gulf. The sun — as the sailors say — is eating it up.
Unless perchance a sombre thunder-head breaks away
from the main body to career all over the gulf till it
escapes into the offing beyond Azuera, where it bursts
suddenly into flame and crashes like a singter pirate-
ship of the air, hoye-to above the horizon, engaging the
sea.

At night the body of clouds advancing higher up
the sky smothers the whole quiet gulf below with an
impenetrable darkness, in which the sound of the falling
showers can be heard beginning and ceasing abruptly —
now here, now there. Indeed, these cloudy nights are
proverbial with the seamen along the whole west coast
of a great continent. Sky , land, and sea disappear
together out of the world when the Placido — as the say-
ing is — goes to sleep under its black poncho. The few
stars left below the seaward frown of the vault shine

Xault snm
jmnn it

feebly as into the mouth of a black cavemnn its

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 7

vastness your ship floats unseen under your feet, her
sails flutter mvisible above your head. The eye of Gc
Himself — ^they add with grim profanity — could not]
find out what work a man's hand is doing in there; and j
you would be free to call the devil to your aid with]
impunity if even his malice were not defeated by such
blind darkness.

The shores on the gulf are steep-to all round ; three un-
inhabited islets basking in the sunshine just outside the
cloud veil, and opposite the entrance to the harbour of
Sulaco, bear the name of " The Isabels."

There is the Great Isabel; the Little Isabel, which is
round; and Hermosa, which is the smallest.

That last is no more than a foot high, and about seven
paoffis across, a mere flat top of a grey rock which smokes
like a hot cinder after a shower, and where no man
would care to venture a naked sole before sunset. On
the Little Isabel an old ragged palm, with a thick bulging
tnmk rough with spines, a very witch amongst palm
trees, rustles a dismal bunch of dead leaves above the
coarse saiid. The Great Isabel has a spring of fresh
water issuing from the overgrown side of a ravine.
Resembling ail emerald green wedge of land a mile long,
and laid flat upon the sea, it bears two forest trees stand-
ing close together, with a wide spread of shade at the
foot of their smj^oth trunks. A ravine extending the
whole length of the island is full of bushes; and pre-
sentmg a deep tangled cleft on the high side spreads it-
self out on the other into a shallow depression abutting
on a small stfip of sandy shore.

From that low end of the Great Isabel the eye plimges
through an opening two miles away, as abrupt as if
chopped with an axe out of the regular sweep of the
coast, right into the harbour of Sulaco. It is an oblong,
lake-like piece of water. On one side the short wooded

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8 NOSTROMO^

spurs and valleys of the Cordillera come down at right
angles to the very strand; on the other the open view
of the great Sulaeo plain passes into the opal mystery
/ of great distances overhung by dry haze. The town of
Sulaeo itself — tops of Avails, a great cupola, gleams of
white miradors in a vast grove of orange trees — lies
between the mountains and the plain, at some little
distance from its harbour and out of the direct line of
sight from the sea.

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CHAPTER TWO

The only sign of commercial activity within the
harbour, visible from the beach of the Great Isabel, is
the square blunt end of the wooden jetty which the
Oceanic Steam Navigation Company (the O.S.N, of ^ ^
familiar speech) had thrown over the shalfow part of the
bay soon after they had resolved to make of Sulaco one
of their ports of call for the Republic of Costaguana.
The State possesses several harbours on its long sea-
board, but except Cayta, an important place, all are
either small and inconvenient inlets in an iron-bound
coast — like Esmeralda, for instance, sixty miles to the
south — or else mere open roadsteads exposed to the
winds and fretted by the surf.

Perhaps the very atmospheric conditions which had
kept awaythe merchant fleets of bygone ages induced
the T).S.N7 Company to yiolate the sanctuary of peace'
sheltering the calm existence of Sulaco. The variable
airs sporting lightly with the vast semicircle of waters
within the head of Azuera could not baffle the steam
power of their excellent fleet. Year after year the
black hulls of their ships had gone up and down
the coast, in and out, past Azuera, past the Isabels,
past Punta Mala — disregarding everything but the
tyranny of time. Their names, the names of all
mythology, became the household words of a coast that
had never been ruled by the gods of Olympus. The
Juno was known only for her comfortable cabins amid-
ships, the Saturn for the geniality of her captain and
the painted and gilt luxuriousness of her saloon, whereas

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10 NOSTROMO

the Ganymede was fitted out mainly for cattle transport,
and to be avoided by coastwise passengers. The
humblest Indian in the obscurest village on the coast
was familiar with the Cerberus, a little black puffer with-
out charm or living accommodation to speak of, whose
mission was to creep inshore along the wooded beaches
close to mighty ugly rocks, stopping obligingly before
every cluster of huts to collect produce, down to three-
pound parcels of indiarubber boimd in a wrapper of dry
grass.

And as they seldom failed to account for the smallest
package, rarely lost a bullock, and had never drowned
a single passenger, the name of the O.S.N, stood
very high for trustworthiness. People declared that
under the Company's care their lives and property-
were safer on the water than in their own houses on
shore.

The O.S.N.'s superintendent in Sulaco for the whole
Costaguana section of the service was very proud of his
Company's standing. He resumed it in a saying which
was very often on his lips, "We never make mistakes."
To the Company's oflScers it took the form of a severe
injimction, "We must make no mistakes. I'll have
no mistakes here, no matter what Smith may do at his
end."

Smith, on whom he had never set eyes in his life, was
the other superintendent of the service, quartered some
fifteen hundred miles away from Sulaco. "Don't talk
to me of your Smith."

Then, calming down suddenly, he would dismiss the
subject with studied negligence.

"Smith knows no more of this continent than a
baby."

"Our excellent Sefior Mitchell" for the business and
official world of Sulaco; "Fussy Joe" for the corn-

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THE SILVER OP THE MINE 11

luanders of the Company's ships, Captam Joseph Mit-
chell prided himself on his profound knowledge of men
'^nd things in the country — cosas de Costaguana.
Amongst these last he accounted as most unfavourable
to the orderly working of his Company the frequent
changes of government brought about by revolutions
of the military type.

The polit ical atmosphere^ ai the Republic was
generally stormy^m'Hfesedaya. The fugitive patriots of
the def eated^arty had the Imack of turning up again on
the coast with half a steamer's load of small arms and
ammunition. Such resourcefulness Captain Mitchell
considered as perfectly wonderful in view of their utter
destitution at the time of flight. He had observed that
"they never seemed to have enough change about them
to pay for their passage ticket out of the country."
And he could speak with knowledge; for on a memo-
rable occasion he had been called upon to save the life
of a dictator, together with the lives of a few Sulaco
oflicials — the political chief, the director of the customs,
and the head of police — belonging to an overturned
government. Poor Sefior Ribiera (such was the dic-
tator's name) ^d come^ pelting eighty miles over
moimtain tracks after the lost battle of Socorro, in
the hope of out-distancing the fatal news — which, of
course, he could not manage to do on a lame mule. The
animal, moreover, expired under him at the end of the
Alameda, where the military band plays sometimes in
the evenings between the revolutions. "Sir," Captain
Mitchell would pursue with portentous gravity, "the
ill-timed end of that mule attracted attention to the
unfortunate rider. His features were recognized by
several deserters from the Dictatorial army amongst the
rascally mob already engaged in smashing the windows
of the Intendencia."

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12 NOSTROMO

Early on the morning of that day the local authorities
of Sulaco had fled for refuge to the O.S.N. Company's
oflSces, a strong building near the shore end of the jetty,
leaving the town to the mercies of a revolutionary
rabble; and as the Dictator was execrated by the
populace on accoimt of the severe recruitment law his
necessities had compelled him to enforce during the
struggle, he stood a good chance of being torn to
pieces. Providentially^ Nostromo— invaluable fellow
—with sonieTtalian workmen, imported to work upon
theL-JiationaLJCentral Railway, was at~land, and
managed to snatch him^ away — for the time at least.
Ultimately, Captain Mitchell succeeded in taking every-
body oflf in his own gig to one of the Company's steamers
— it was the Minerva — just then, as luck would have it,
entering the harbour.

He had to lower these gentlemen at the end of a rope
out of a hole in the wall at the back, while the mob
which, poiu-ing out of the town, had spread itself all along
the shore, howled and foamed at the foot of the building
in front. He had to hurry them then the whole length
of the jetty; it had been a desperate dash, neck or
nothing — ^and again it was J^ostromo, a fellow in a
thousand, who, at the head, this time, of the Company's
body of lightermen, held the jetty against the rushes of
the rabble, thus giving the fugitives time to reach the
gig lying ready for them at the other end with the
Company's flag at the stem. Sticks, stones, shots
flew; knives, too, were thrown. Captain Mitchell
exhibited willingly the long cicatrice of a cut over his
left ear and temple, made by a razor-blade fastened to a
stick — Si weapon, he explained, very much in favour
with the "worst kind of nigger out here."

Captain Mitchell was a thick, elderly man, wearing
high, pointed collars and short side-whiskers, partial to

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 13

white waistcoats, and really very communicative und^-
his air of pompous reserve.

"These gentlemen," he would say, staring with great
solemnity, "had to run like rabbits, sir. I ran like a
rabbit myself. Certain forms of death are — er — dis-
tasteful to a — a — er — ^respectable man. They would
have pounded me to death, too. A crazy mob, sir, does^
not discriminate. Under providence we owed our
presSvaHoir"t5*Tfiy Capataz de Cargadores, as they
called him in the town, a man who, when I discovered
his value, sir, was just the bos'n of an Italian ship, a
big Genoese ship, one of the few European ships that
ever came icr Sulaco with a general cargo before the
building of the National Central. He left her on
account of some very respectable friends he made here,
his own countrymen, but also, I suppose, to better him-
self. Sir, I am a pretty good judge of character. I
engaged him to be the foreman of our lightermen, and
caretaker of our jetty. That's all that he was. But
without him Sefior Ribiera would have been a dead
man. This J^jastrooao, sir, a man absolutely above
reproach, became the terror of^idt the thieves in the >
.-tewnr."^HVewereirrfestcd, infested, overrun, sir, here at
that 'IGme by ladrones and matreros, thieves and
murderers from the whole province. On this occasion
they had been flocking into Sulaco for a week past.
They had scented the end, sir. Fifty per cent, of that
murdering mob were professional bandits from the
Campo, sir, but there wasn't one that hadn't heard of
Nostromo. As to the town leperos, sir, the sight of his
black whiskers and white teeth was enough for them.
They^ quailed before him, sir. That's what the force of
characteF^^flt7krf<5r^you7^~~~

It could: Very "wefrijiTisaid that it was Nostromo alone
who saved the lives of these gentlemen. Captain Mit-

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14 NOSTROMO

chell, on his part, never left them till he had seen them
collapse, panting, terrified, and exasperated, but safe, on
the luxuriant velvet sofas in the first-class saloon of the
Minerva. To the very last he had been careful to ad-
dress the ex-Dictator as "Your Excellency."

"Sir, I could do no other. The man was down —
ghastly, livid, one mass of scratches.'*

The Minerva never let go her anchor that call. The
superintendent ordered her out of the harbour at once.
No cargo could be landed, of course, and the passengers
for Sulaco naturally refused to go ashore. They could
hear the firing and see plainly the fight going on at the
edge of the water. The repulsed mob devoted its
energies to an attack upon the Custom House, a dreary,
unfinished-looking structure with many windows two
himdred yards away from the O.S.N. OflSces, and the
only other building near the harbour. Captain Mit-
chell, after directing the commander of the Minerva
to land "these gentlemen" in the first port of call out-
side Costaguana, went back in his gig to see what could
be done for the protection of the Company's property.
Thatj^djthe^property of the railway were pres^rve4 by
the European resiclen^rTEat is, by Captain Mitchell
liiiEsetf and~^hen5taflf of engineers building the road,
aided by the Italian and Basque workmen who rallied
faithfully round their English chiefs. The Company's
lightermen, too, natives of the Republic, behaved very
well under their Capataz. An outcast lot of very mixed
blood, mainly negroes, everlastingly at feud with the
other customers of low grog shops in the town, they
embraced with delight this opportunity to settle their
personal scores under such favourable auspices. There
was not one of them that had not, at some time or
other, looked with terror at Nostromo's revolver poked
very close at his face, or been otherwise daunted by

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 15

Nostromo's resolution. He was "much of a mau," ^
their Capataz was, they said, too scornful in his temper A
ever to utter abuse, a tireless taskmaster, and the more^
to be feared because of his aloofness. And behold!
there he was that day, at their head, condescending to
make jocular remarks to this man or the other.

Such leadership was inspiriting, and in truth all the
harm the mob managed to achieve was to set fire to one
— only one — stack of railway-sleepers, which, being
creosoted, burned well. The main attack on the rail-
way yards, on the O.S.N. OflSces, and especially on the
Custom House, whose strong room, it was well known,-^
contained a large treasure in silver ingots, failed com-
pletdy. Even the little hotel kept by old Giorgio,
standing alone halfway between the harbour and the
town, escaped looting and destruction, not by a miracle,
but because with the safes in view they had neglected it
at first, and afterwards found no leisure to stop. Nos-
tromo, with his Cargadores, was pressing them too hard
then.

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CHAPTER THREE

It might have been said that there he was only pro-
tecting his own. Prom the first he had been admitted
to live in the intimacy of the family of the hotel-keeper
who was a countryman of his. Old Giorgio Viola, a
Genoese with a shaggy white leonine head — often called
simply "the Qaribaldinal'^ (as Mohammedan!^ are
called after their prophet) — was, to use Captain Mit-
chelFs own words, the "respectable married friend" by
whose advice Nostromo had left his ship to try f pr^ rim
of shore luck in Costaguana.

The old man, full of scorn for the populace, as your
^austere republican so often is, had disregarded the
preliminary sounds of trouble. He went on that day
as usual pottering about the "casa" in his slippers,
muttering angrily to himself his contempt of the non-
political nature of the riot, and shrugging his shoulders.
In the end he was taken unawares by the out-rush of
the rabble. It was too late then to remove his family,
and, indeed, where could he have run to with the portly
Signora Teresa and two little girls on that great plain?
So, barricading every opening, the old man sat down
sternly in the middle of the darkened caf& with an old
shot-gun on his knees. His wife sat on another chair by
his side, muttering pious invocations to all the saints of
the calendar.

The old republican did not believe in saints, or in
prayers, or in what he called "priest's religion."
Liberty and Garibaldi were his divinities; but he

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 17^

tolerated "superstition" in women, preserving in these
matters a lofty and silent attitude.

His two girls, the eldest fourteen, and the other two
years yoimger, crouched on the sanded floor, on each
side of the Signora Teresa, with their heads on their
mother's lap, both scared, but each in her own way, the
dark-haired Linda indignant and angry, the fair Giselle,
the younger, bewildered and resigned. The Patrona
removed her arms, which embraced her daughters, for a
moment to cross herself and wring her hands hurriedly.
She moaned a little louder.

**0h! Gian' Battista, why art thou not here? Oh!
why art thou not here?"

She was not then invoking the saint himself, but
calling upon Nostromo, whose patron he was. And
Giorgio, motionless on the chair by her side, would b(^
provoked by these reproachful and distracted appeals.

"Peace, woman! Where's the sense of it? There's
his duty," he murmured in the dark; and she would
retort, panting —

"Eh! I have no patience. Duty! What of the
woman who has been like a mother to him? I bent my
knee to him this morning; don't you go out, Gian'
Battista — stop in the house, Battistino — look at those
two little innocent children!"

Mrs. Viola was an Italian, too, a native of Sp>ezzia,
and though considerably younger than her husband,
already middle-aged. She had a handsome face, whose
complexion had turned yellow because the climate of
Sulaco did not suit her at all. Her voice was a rich
contralto. When, with her arms folded tight under her
ample bosom, she scolded the squat, thick-legged China
girls handling linen, plucking fowls, pounding com in
wooden mortars amongst the mud outbuildings at the
back of the house, she could bring out such an im-

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18 NOSTROMO

passioned, vibrating, sepulchral note that the chained
watch-dog bolted into his kennel with a great rattle-
Luis, a cinnamon-coloured mulatto with a sprouting
moustache and thick, dark lips, would stop sweeping the
cafi with a broom of palm-leaves to let a gentle shudder
run down his spine. His languishing almond eyes
would remain closed for a long time.

This was the staflp of the Casa Viola, but all these
people had fled early that morning at the first soimds
of tiie riot, preferring to hide on the plain rather than
trust themselves in the house; a preference for which
they were in no way to blame, since, whether true or not,
it was generally believed in the town that the Garibal-
dino had some money buried under the clay floor of the
kitchen. The dog, an irritable, shaggy brute, barked
violently and whined plaintively in turns at the back,
running in and out of his kennel as rage or fear prompted
him.

Bursts of great shouting rose and died away, like wild
gusts of wind on the plain round the barricaded house;
the fitfid popping of shots grew louder above the yelling.
Sometimes there were intervals of unaccountable still-
ness outside, and nothing could have been more gaily
peacefid than the narrow bright lines of sunhght from
the cracks in the shutters, ruled straight across the
jpa/(^ over the disarranged chairs and tables to the wall
opposite. Old Giorgio had chosen that bare, white-
washed room for a retreat. It had only one window,
and its only door swung out upon the track of thick
dust fenced by aloe hedges between the harbour and
the town, where clumsy carts used to creak along behind
slow yokes of oxen guided by boys on horseback.

In a pause of stillness Giorgio cocked his gun. The
ominous sound wrung a low moan from the rigid figure
of the woman sitting by his side. A sudden outbreak

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THE SILVER OP THE MINE 19

of defiant yelling quite near the house sank all at once
to a confused murmur of growls. Somebody ran along;
the loud catching of his breath was heard for an instant
passing the door; there were hoarse mutters and foot-
steps near the wall; a shoulder rubbed against the
shutter, effacing the bright lines of sunshine pencilled
across the whole breadth of the room. Signora Teresa's
arms thrown about the kneeling forms of her daughters
embraced them closer with a convulsive pressure.

The mob, driven away from the Custom House, had
broken up into several bands, retreating across the plain
in the direction of the town. The subdued crash of
irr^ular volleys fired in the distance was answered by
faint yells far away. In the intervals the single shots
rang feebly, and the low, long, white building blinded in
every window seemed to be the centre of a turmoil
widening in a great circle about its closed-up silence.
But the cautious movements and whispers of a routed
party seeking a momentary shelter behind the wall
made the darkness of the room, striped by threads of
quiet sunlight, alight with evil, stealthy sounds. The
Violas had them in their ears as though invisible
ghosts hovering about their chairs had consulted in
mutters as to the advisability of setting fire to this
foreigner's casa.

It was trying to the nerves. Old Viola had risen
slowly, gun in hand, irresolute, for he did not see how he
could prevent them. Already voices could be heard
talking at the back. Signora Teresa was beside herself
with terror.

"Ah! the traitor! the traitor!" she mumbled, almost
inaudibly. "Now we are going to be burnt; and 1
bent my knee to him. No! he must run at the heels of
his English."

She seemed to think that Nostromo's mere presence

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20 NOSTROMO

in the house would have made it perfectly safe. So far,
she, too, was under the spell of that reputation the Capa-
?taz de Cargadores had made for himself by the water-
^ side, along the railway line, with the English and with
the populace of Sulaco. To his face, and even against
her husband, she invariably affected to laugh it to scorn,
sometimes good-naturedly, more often with a curious
bitterness. But then women are unreasonable in their
opinions, as Giorgio used to remark calmly on fitting
occasions. On this occasion, with his gun held at
ready before him, he stooped down to his wife's head,
and, keeping his eyes steadfastly on the barricaded
door, he breathed out into her ear that Nostromo would
have been powerless to help. What could two men
shut up in a house do against twenty or more bent upon
setting fire to the roof? Gian' Battista was thinking of
the casa all the time, he was sure.

"He think of the casa! He!" gasped Signora Viola,
crazily. She struck her breast with her open hands.
"I know him. He thinks of nobody but himself.'

A discharge of firearms near by made her throw her
head back and close her eyes. Old Giorgio set his
teeth hard under his white moustache, and his eyes be-
gan to roll fiercely. Several bullets struck the end of
the wall together; pieces of plaster could be heard
falling outside; a voice screamed "Here they come!"
and after a moment of uneasy silence there was a rush
of running feet along the front.

Then the tension of old Giorgio's attitude relaxed,
and a smile of contemptuous relief came upon his lips
of an old fighter with a leonine face. These were not a
people striving for justice, but thieves. Even to de-
fend his life against them was a sort of degradation for
a man who had been one of Garibaldi's immortal
thousand in the conquest of Sicily. He had an im-

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 21

mense scorn for this outbreak of scoundrels end leperos,
who did not know the meaning of the word "liberty."

He grounded his old gun, and, turning his head,
glanced at the coloured lithograph of Garibaldi in a
black frame on the white wall; a thread of strong sun-
shine cut it perpendicularly. His eyes, accustomed to
the luminous twilight, made out the high colouring of
the face, the red of the shirt, the outlines of the square
shoulders, the black patch of the Bersagliere hat with
cock's feathers curling over the crown. An immortal
hero! This was your liberty; it gave you not only life,
but immortality as well!

For that one man his fanaticism had suffered no
diminution. In the moment of relief from the ap-
prehension of the greatest danger, perhaps, his family
had been exposed to in all their wanderings, he had
turned to the picture of his old chief, first and only,
then laid his hand on his wife's shoulder.

The children kneeling on the floor had not moved.
Signora Teresa opened her eyes a little, as though he
had awakened her from a very deep and dreamless
slumber. Before he had time in his deliberate way to
say a reassuring word she jumped up, with the children
clinging to her, one on each side, gasped for breath, and
let out a hoarse shriek.

It was simultaneous with the bang of a violent blow
struck on the outside of the shutter. They could hear
suddenly the snorting of a horse, the restive tramping of
hoofs on the narrow, hard path in front of the house; the
toe of a boot struck at the shutter again; a spur jingled
at every blow, and an excited voice shouted, "Hola!
hola, in there!"

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CHAPTER FOUR

All the morning Nostromo had kept his eye from afar
on the Casa Viola, even in the thick of the hottest scrim-
mage near the Custom House. "If I see smoke rising
over there," he thought to himself, "they are lost."
Directly the mob had broken he pressed with a small
band of Italian workmen in that direction, which, in-
deed, was the shortest line towards the town. That
part of the rabble he was pursuing seemed to think of
making a stand under the house; a volley fired by his
followers from behind an aloe hedge made the rascals
fly. In a gap chopped out for the rails of the harbour
branch line Nostromo appeared, mounted on his
silver-grey mare. He shouted, sent after them one
shot from his revolver, and galloped up to the cafe
window. He had an idea that old Giorgio would
choose that part of the house for a refuge.

His voice had penetrated to them, sounding breath-
lessly hurried: "Hola! Vecchio! O, Vecchio! Is it all
well with you in there?"

"You see — : — " murmured old Viola to his wife.

Signora Teresa was silent now. Outside Nostromo
laughed.

"I can hear the padrona is not dead."

"You have done your best to kill me with fear," cried
Signora Teresa. She wanted to say something more,
but her voice failed her.

Linda raised her eyes to her face for a moment, but
old Giorgio shouted apologetically —

"She is a little upset."

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 23

Outside Nostromo shouted back with another
laugh —

''She cannot upset me."

Signora Teresa found her voice.

"It is what I say. You have no heajt — and you
have no cojjsciegce, Gian' Battista "

They heard him wheel his horse away from the
shutters. The party he led were babbling excitedly in
Italian and Spanish, inciting each other to the pursuit.
He put himself at their head, crying, " Avanti!"

"He has not stopped very long with us. There is no
praise from strangers to be got here," Signora Teresa
said, tragically. "Avanti! Yes! That is all he cares
for. To be first somewhere — somehow— to be first
with these English. They will be showing him to
everybody. *Xbi»-^-<m r No stromo!'" .„She laughed
om inously^ __^^What a, name! _ What is that? Nos-
tromo? T ffe wo uld, take a name J^a±^i& properly^no
worTfrom them . ' '

Meantime Giorgio, with tranquil movements, had
been unfastening the door; the flood of light fell on
Signora Teresa, with her two girls gathered to her side,
a picturesque woman in a pose of maternal exaltation.
Behind her the wall was dazzlingly white, and the
crude colours of the Garibaldi lithograph paled in the
sunshine.

Old Viola, at the door, moved his arm upwards as if
referring all his quick, fleeting thoughts to the pictui'e
of his old chief on the wall. Even when he was cooking
for the "Signori Inglesi" — ^the engineers (he was a
famous cook, though the kitchen was a dark place) — ^he
was, as it were, under the eye of the great man who had
led him in a glorious struggle where, under the walls
of Gaeta, tyranny would have expired for ever had it not
been for that accursed Piedmontese race of kings and

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24 1 NOSTROMO

ministers. When sometimes a frying-pan caught fire
during a delicate operation with some shredded onions,
and the old man was seen backing out of the doorway,
swearing and coughing violently in an acrid cloud of
smoke, the name of Cavour — the arch intriguer sold to
kings and tyrants — could be heard involved in im-
precations against the China girls, cooking in general,
and the brute of a country where he was reduced to live
for the love of liberty that traitor had strangled.

Then Signora Teresa, all in black, issuing from
another door, advanced, portly and anxious, inclining
her fine, black-browed head, opening her arms, and
crying in a profound tone —

"Giorgio! thou passionate man! Misericordia
Divina! In the sun like this! He will make himself
ill."

At her feet the hens made off in all directions, with
immense strides; if there were any engineers from up
the line staying in Sulaco, a young English face or two
would appear at the billiard-room occupying one end of
the house; but at the other end, in the caf6y Luis, the
mulatto, took good care not to show himself. The
Indian girls, with hair like flowing black manes, and
dressed only in a shift and short petticoat, stared dully
from under the square-cut fringes on their foreheads;
the noisy frizzling of fat had stopped, the fumes floated
upwards in sunshine, a strong smell of burnt onions
hung in the drowsy heat, enveloping the house; and the
eye lost itself in a vast flat expanse of grass to the west,
as if the plain between the Sierra overtopping Sulaco
and the coast range away there towards Esmeralda had
been as big as half the world.

Signora Teresa, after an impressive pause, remon-
strated —

"Eh, Giorgio! ^ Leave Cavour alone and take care of

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 25

yourself now we are lost in this country all alone
with the+wo children, because you cannot live under a
King."

— And while she looked at him she would sometimes put
her hand hastily to her side with a short twitch of her
fine lips and a knitting of her black, straight eyebrows
like a flicker of angry pain or an angry thought on her
handsome, regular features.

It was pain; she suppressed the twinge. It had come
to her first a few years after they had left Italy to emi-
grate to America and settle at last in Sulaco after
wandering from town to town, trying shopkeeping in a
small way here and there; and once an organized enter-
prise of fishing — in Maldonado — for Giorgio, like the
great Garibaldi, had been a sailor in his time.

Sometimes she had no patience with pain. For years
its gnawing had been part of the landscape embracing
the glitter of the harbour under the wooded spurs of the
range; and the sunshine itself was heavy and dull —
heavy with pain — not like the sunshine of her girlhood,
in which middle-aged Giorgio had wooed her gravely
and passionately on the shores of the gulf of Spezzia.

"You go in at once, Giorgio," she directed. "One
would think you do not wish to have any pity on me —
with four Signori Inglesi staying in the house." '

"Va bene, va bene,"^ Giorgio would mutter.

He obeyed. The Signori Inglesi would require their
midday meal presently. He had '^Been one of the
immortal and invincible band of liberators who had
made the mercenaries of tyranny fly like chaflf before a
hurricane, "un uragano terribile." But that was before
he was married and had children; and before tyranny
had reared its head again amongst the traitors who had
imprisoned Garibaldi, his hero.
^ There were three doors in the front of the house, and

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«6 NOSTROMO

each afternoon the Garibaldino could be seen at one or
another of them with his big bush of white hair, his
arms folded, his legs crossed, leaning back his leonine
head against the side, and looking up the wooded
slopes of the foothills at the snowy dome of Higuerota.
The front of his house threw off a black long rectangle
of shade, broadening slowly over the soft ox-cart track.
Through the gaps, chopped out in the oleander hedges,
the harbour branch railway, laid out temporarily on the
level of the plain, curved away its shining parallel rib-
bons on a belt of scorched and withered grass within
sixty yards of the end of the house. In the evening
the empty material trains of flat cars circled round the
dark green grove of Sulaco, and ran, undulating slightly
with white jets of steam, over the plain towards the
Casa Viola, on their way to the railway yards by
the harbour. The Italian drivers saluted him from the
foot-plate with raised hand, while the negro brakesmen
sat carelessly on the brakes, looking straight forward,
with the rims of their big hats flapping in the wind. In
return Giorgio would give a slight sideways jerk of the
head, without unfolding his arms.

On this memorable day of the riot his arms were not
folded on his chest. His hand grasped the barrel of the
gun grounded on the threshold; he did not look up once
at the white dome of Higuerota, whose cool purity
{seemed to hold itself aloof from a hot earth. His eyes
examined the plain curiously. Tall trails of dust sub-
sided here and there. In a speckless sky the sun hung
dear and blinding. Knots of men ran headlong; others
made a stand; and the irregular rattle of firearms
came rippling to his ears in the fiery, still air. Single
figures on foot •raced desperately. Horsemen galloped
towards each other, wheeled round together, separated
at speed. Giorgio saw one fall, rider and horse dis-

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 2f

appearing as if they had galloped into a chasm, and the
movements of the animated scene were like the passages
of a violent game played upon the plain by dwarfs
mounted and on foot, yelling with tiny throats, imder
the mountain that seemed a colossal embodiment of
silence. Never before had Giorgio seen this bit of plain
so full of active life; his gaze could not take in all its
details at once; he shaded his eyes with his hand, till
suddenly the thundering of many hoofs near by startled
him.

A troop of horses had broken out of the fenced pad-
dock of the Railway Company. They came on like a
whirlwind, and dashed over the line snorting, kicking,
squealing in a compact, piebald, tossing mob of bay,
brown, grey backs, eyes staring, necks extended, nos-
trils red, long tails streaming. As soon as they had
leaped upon the road the thick dust flew upwards from
under their hoofs, and within six yards of Giorgio only
a brown cloud with vague forms of necks and cruppers
rolled by, making the soil tremble on its passage.

Viola coughed, turning his face away from the dust,
and shaking his head slightly.

"There will be some horse-catching to be done before
to-night," he muttered.

In the square of sunlight falling through the door
Signora Teresa, kneeling before the chair, had bowed
her head, heavy with a twisted mass of ebony hair
streaked with silver, into the palm of her hands. The
black lace shawl she used to drape about her face had
dropped to the ground by her side. The two girls had
got up, hand-in-hand, in short skirts, their loose hair
falling in disorder. The younger had thrown her arm
across her eyes, as if afraid to face the light. Linda,
with her hand on the other's shoulder, slared fearlessly.
Viola looked at his children.

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28 NOSTROMO

The sun brought out the deep lines on his face, and,
energetic in expression, it had the immobility of a
carving. It was impossible to discover what he thought.
Bushy grey eyebrows shaded his dark glance.

"Well! And do you not pray like your mother?"

Linda pouted, advancing her red lips, which were
almost too red; but she had admirable eyes, brown, with
a sparkle of gold in the irises, full of intelligence and
meaning, and so clear that they seemed to throw a glow
upon her thin, colourless face. There were bronze
glints in the sombre clusters of her hair, and the eye-
lashes, long and coal black, made her complexion appear
still more pale.

"Mother is going to oflFer up a lot of candles in the
church. She always does when Nostromo has been
away fighting. I shall have some to carry up to the
Chapel of the Madonna in the Cathedral."

She said all this quickly, with great assurance, in an
animated, penetrating voice. Then, giving her sister's
shoulder a slight shake, she added —

"And she will be made to carry one, too!"

"Why made?" inquired Giorgio, gravely. "Does
she not want to?"

"She is timid," said Linda, with a little burst of
laughter. "People notice her fair hair as she goes along
with us. They call out after her, *Look at the Rubia !
Look at the Rubiacita!' They call out in the streets.
She is timid."

"And you? You are not timid — eh?" the father
pronounced, slowly.

She tossed back all her dark hair.

"Nobody calls out after me."

Old Giorgio contemplated his children thoughtfully.
There was two years difiFerence between them. They
had been bom to him late, years after the boy had died.

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 29

Had he lived he would have been nearly as old as
G ian' B attjsta=h^ whom fht^ F.ngliaV^alled Nofftronij?.;
But as to his daughters, the severity of his temper, his
advancing age, his absorption in his memories, had pre-
vented his taking much notice of them. He loved his
children, butgirlsjbelongmore to the mother, and much
of his affection ^ad beSi expendeH^in the worship and
service^ofTIberty.™ ^"^

When quite a youth he had deserted from a ship trad-
ing to La Plata, to enlist in the navy of Montevideo,
then under the command of Garibaldi. Afterwards,
in the Italian legion of the Republic struggling against
the encroaching tyranny of Rosas, he had taken part,
on great plains, on the banks of immense rivers, in the
fiercest fighting perhaps the world had ever known.
^e had liyed amongst men who had declaimed about
liberty, suffered^ior liberty, died for liberty, with a
desperate exaltation, and with their eyes turned
towards an oppressed Italy. His own enthusiasm had
been fed on scenes of carnage, on the examples of lofty
devotion, on the din of armed struggle, on the inflamed
language of proclamations. He had never parted from
the chief of his choice — the fiery apostle of independence
— ^keeping by his side in America and in Italy till after
the fatal day of Aspromonte, when the treachery of
kings, emperors, and ministers had been revealed to the
world in the wounding and imprisonment of his hero — a
catastrophe thaf had instilled into him a gloomy doubt
of ever being able to understand the ways of Divine
justice.

He did not deny it, however. It required patience,
he would say. Though he disliked priests, and would
not put his foot inside a church for anything, he believed
in God. Were not the proclamations against tyrants
addressed to the peoples in the name of God and liberty?

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30 NOSTROMO

"God for men — ^religions for women," he muttered
sometimes. In Sicily, an Englishman who had turned
up in Palermo after its evacuation by the army of the
king, had given him a Bible in Italian — the publication
of the British and Foreign Bible Society, bound in a
dark leather cover. In periods of political adversity,
in the pauses of silence when the revolutionists issued
no proclamations, Giorgio earned his living with the
first work that came to hand — ^as sailor, as dock labourer
on the quays of Genoa, once as a hand on a farm in
the hills above Spezzia — and in his spare time he
studied the thick volume. He carried it with him into
battles. Now it was his only reading, and in order not
to be deprived of it (the print was small) he had con-
sented to accept the present of a pair of silver-mounted
spectacles from Sefiora Emilia Gould, the wife of
the Englishman who managed the silver mine in
the mountains three leagues from the town. She was
the only Englishwoman in Sulaco.

Giorgio Viola had a great consideration for the
English. This feeling, born on the battlefields of
Uruguay, was forty years old at the very least. Several
of them had poured their blood for the cause of freedom
in America, and the first he had ever known he re-
membered by the name of Samuel; he commanded a
negro company under Garibaldi, during the famous
siege of Montevideo, and died heroically with his
negroes at the fording of the Boyana. He, Giorgia, had
reached the rank of ensign — alferez — and cooked for the
general. Later, in Italy, he, with the rank of lieutenant,
rode with the staff and still cooked for the general. He
had cooked for him in Lombardy through the whole
campaign; on the march to Rome he had lassoed his
beef in the Campagna after the American manner; he
had been woxmded in the defence of the Roman Re-

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 31

public; he was one of the four fugitives who, with the
general, carried out of the woods the inanimate body of
the general's wife into the farmhouse where she died,
exhausted by the hardships of that terrible retreat.
He had survived that disastrous time to attend his
general in Palermo when the Neapolitan shells from the
castle crai^ed upon the town. He had cooked for him
on the field of Volturno after fighting all day. And
everywhere he had seen Englishmen in the front rank
of the army of freedom. He respected their nation be-
cause they loved Garibaldi. Their very countesses
and princesses had kissed the general's hands in London,
it was said. He could well believe it; for the nation was
noble, and tbe man was a saint. It was enough to look
once at his face to see the divine force of faith in him
and his great pity for all that was poor, suflFering, and
oppressed in this world.

The spirit of self-forgetfulness, the simple devotion to
a vast humanitarian idea which inspired the thought
and stress of that revolutionary time, had left its mark
upon Giorgio in a sort of austere contempt for all
personal advantage. This man, whom the lowest class
in Sulaco suspected of having a buried hoard in his
I kitchen, had all his life despised money. The leaders of
his youth had lived poor, had died poor. It had been a
habit of his mind to disregard to-morrow. It was
engendered partly by an existence of excitement,
adventure, and wild warfare. But mostly it was a
ma4:ter of principle. It did not resemble the careless-
ness of a condottiere, it was a puritanism of conduct,
bom of stern enthusiasm like the puritanism of religion.

This stern devotion to a cause had cast a gloom upon
Giorgio's old age. It cast a gloom because the cause
seemed lost. Joo many kings and emperors flourished
yet in the world which God had meant for the people.

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32 NOSTROMO

He was sad because of his simplicity. Though always
ready to help his countrymen, and greatly respected by
the Italian emigrants wherever he lived (in his exile he
called it), he could not conceal from himself that they
cared nothing for the wrongs of down-trodden nations.
They listened to his tales of war readily, but seemed to
ask themselves what he had got out of it after all.
There was nothing that they could see. "We wanted
nothing, we suffered for the love of all humanity!" he
cried out furiously sometimes, and the powerful voice,
the blazing eyes, the shaking of the white mane, the
brown, sinewy hand pointing upwards as if to call
heaven to witness, impressed his hearers. After the old
man had broken off abruptly with a jerk of the head and
a movement of the arm, meaning clearly, "But what's
the good of talking to you?" they nudged each other.
There was in old Giorgio an energy of feelings a personal
quality of conviction, something they called "terri-
bilita" — "an old lion," they used to say of him. Some
slight incident, a chance word would set him off talking
on the beach to the Italian fishermen of Maldonado, in
the little shop he kept afterwards (in Valparaiso) to his
countrymen customers; of an evening, suddenly, in the
caf6 at one end of the Casa Viola (the other was re-
served for the English engineers) to the select clientele of
engine-drivers and foremen of the railway shops.

With their handsome, bronzed, lean faces, shiny
black ringlets, glistening eyes, broad-chested, bearded,
sometimes a tiny gold ring in the lobe of the ear,
the aristocracy of the railway works listened to him,
turning away from their cards or dominoes. Here
and there a fair-haired Basque studied his hand
meantime, waiting without protest. No native of
Costaguana intruded there. This was the Italian
stronghold. Even the Sulaco policemen on &-^^?^ht

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 33

patrol let their horses pace softly by, bending low in the
saddle to glance through the window at the heads in a
fog of smoke; and the drone of old Giorgio*s declamatory
narrative seemed to sink behind them into the plain.
Only now and then the assistant of the chief of police,
some broad-faced, brown little gentleman, with a great
deal of Indian in him, would put in an appearance.
Leaving his man outside with the horses he advanced
with a confident, sly smile, and without a word up to the
long trestle table. He pointed to one of the bottles
on the shelf; Giorgio, thrusting his pipe into bis mouth
abruptly, served him in person. Nothing would be
heard but the slight jingle of the spurs. His glass
emptied, he would take a leisurely, scrutinizing look all
round the room, go out, and ride away slowly, circling
towards the town.

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CHAPTER FIVE

/ In this way only was the power of the local authori-
L ties vindicated amongst the great body of strong-
\. limbed foreigners who dug the earth, blasted the
rocks, drove the engines for the "progressive and
patriotic undertaking." In these very words eighteen
months before the Excellentissimo Senor don Vincente
Ribiera, the Dictator of Costaguana, had described the
National Central Railway in his great speech at the
turning of the first sod.

He had come on purpose to Sulaco, and there was a
one-o'clock dinner-party, a convitS offered by the O.S.N.
Company on board the Juno after the function on shore.
Captain Mitchell had himself steered the cargo lighter,
all draped with flags, which, in tow of the Juno^s steam
launch, took the Excellentissimo from the jetty to the
ship. Everybody of note in Sulaco had been invited —
the one or two foreign merchants, all the representatives
of the old Spanish families then in town, the great
owners of estates on the plain, grave, courteous, simple
men, caballeros of pure descent, with small hands and
feet, conservative, hospitable, and kind. The Oc-
cidental Province was their stronghold; their Blanco
party had triumphed now; it was their President-
Dictator, a Blanco of the Blancos, who sat smiling
urbanely between the representatives of two friendly
foreign powers. They had come with him from Sta.
Marta to countenance by their presence the enterprise
in which the capital of their countries was engaged.
The only lady of that company was Mrs. Gould, the

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 36

wife of Don Carlos, the administrator of the San Tome
silver mine. The ladies of Sulaco were not advanced
enough to take part in the public life to that extent.
They had come out strongly at the great ball at the
Intendencia the evening before, but Mrs. Gould alone
had appeared, a bright spot in the group of black coats
behind the President-Dictator, on the crimson cloth-
covered stage erected under a shady tree on the shore
of the harbour, where the ceremony of turning the first
sod had taken place. She had come off in the cargo
lighter, full of notabilities, sitting under the flutter of
gay flags, in the place of honour by the side of Captain
Mtchell, who steered, and her clear dress gave the only
truly festive note to the sombre gathering in the long,
gorgeous saloon of the Juno.

The head of the chairman of the railway board (from
London), handsome and pale in a silvery mist of white
hair and clipped beard, hovered near her shoulder
attentive, smiling, and fatigued. The journey from
London to Sta. Marta in mail boats and the special
carriages of the Sta. Marta coast-line (the only railway
so far) had been tolerable — even pleasant — quite toler-
able. But the trip over the mountains to Sulaco was
another sort of experience, in an old diligencia over im-
passable roads skirting awful precipices. •

"We have been upset twice in one day on the brink of
very deep ravines," he was telling Mrs. Gould in an
undertone. *' And when we arrived here at last I don't
know what we should have done without your hos-
pitality. What an out-of-the-way place Sulaco is I —
and for a harbour, too ! Astonishing ! "

"Ah, but we are very proud of it. It used to be
Wstorically important. The highest ecclesiastical court,
for two viceroyalties, sat here in the olden time,'% she
instructed him with animation.

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36 NOSTROMO

"'I am impressed. I didn't mean to be disparaging.
You seem very patriotic."

"The place is lovable, if only by its situation. Per-
haps you don't know what an old resident I am."

"How old, I wonder," he murmured, looking at her
with a slight smile. Mrs. Gould's appearance was
made youthful by the mobile intelligence of her face.
"We can't give you your ecclesiastical court back again;
but you shall have more steamers, a railway, a tele-
graph-cable — a future in the great world which is worth
infinitely more than any amount of ecclesiastical past.
You shall be brought in touch with something greater
than two viceroyalties. But I had no notion that a
place on a sea-coast could remain so isolated from the
world. If it had been a thousand miles inland now — most
remarkable! Has anything ever happened here for a
hundred years before to-day?"

While he talked in a slow, humorous tone, she kept
her little smile. Agreeing ironically, she assured him
that certainly not — ^nothing ever happened in Sulaco.
Even the revolutions, of |which there had been two
in her time, had respected the repose of the place.
Their course ran in the more populous southern parts
of the Republic, and the great valley of Sta. Marta,
which was like one great battlefield of the parties,
with the possession of the capital for a prize and
an outlet to another ocean. They were more advanced
over there. Here in Sulaco they heard only the echoes
of these great questions, . and, of course, their ofiicial
world changed each time, coming to them over their
rampart of mountains which he himself had traversed
in an old diligencia, with such a risk to life and limb.

The chairman of the railway had been enjoying her
hospitality for several days, and he was really grateful
for it. It was only since he had left Sta. Marta that h^

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THE SILVER OP THE MINE 37

had utterly lost touch with the feeling of European life
on the background of his exotic surroundings. In the
capital he had been the guest of the Legation, and had
been kept busy negotiating with the members of Don
Vincente's Gove;mment — cultured men, men to whom
the conditions of civilized business were not imknown.

What concerned him most at the time was the
acquisition of land for the railway. In the Sta. Marta
Valley, where there was already one line in existence,
the people were tractable, and it was only a matter of
price. A commission had been nominated to fix the
values, and the diflSculty resolved itself into the judi-
cious influencing of the Commissioners. But in Sulaco —
the Occidental Province for whose very development
the railway was intended — ^there had been trouble. It
had been lying for ages ensconced behind its natural
barriers, repelling modern enterprise by the precipices
of its mountain range, by its shallow harbour opening
into the everlasting calms of a gulf full of clouds, by
the benighted state of mind of the owners of its fertile
territory — all these aristocratic old Spanish families, all
those Don Ambrosios this and Don Pemandos that, who
seemed actually to dislike and distrust the coming of the
railway over their lands. It had happened that some of
the surveying parties scattered all over the province had
been warned off with threats of violence. In other cases
outrageous pretensions as to price had been raised.
But the man of railways prided himself on being equal to
every emergency. Since he was met by the inimical
sentiment of blind conservatism in Sulaco he would
meet it by sentiment, too, before taking his stand on his
right alone. The Government was bound to carry out
its part of the contract with the board of the new
railway company, even if it had to use force for the
purpose. But he desired nothing les^ than an armed

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38 NOSTROMO

disturbance in the smooth working of his plans. They
were much too vast and far-reaching, and too promis-
ing to leave a stone unturned; and so he imagined to get
the President-Dictator over there on a tour of cere-
monies and speechesj culminating in a great function-
at the turning of the first sod by the harbour shore.
After all he was their own creature — that Don Vincente.
He was the embodied triumph of the best elements in
the State. These were facts, and, unless facts meant
nothing. Sir John argued to himself, such a man's in-
fluence must be real, and his personal action would
produce the conciliatory effect he required. He had
succeeded in arranging the trip with the help of a very
clever advocate, who was known in Sta. Marta as the
agent of the Gould silver mine, the biggest thing in
Sulaco, and even in the whole Republic. It was indeed
a fabulously rich mine. Its so-called agent, evidently a
man of culture and ability, seemed, without ofl5cial
position, to possess an extraordinary influence in the
highest Government spheres. He was able to assure
Sir John that the President-Dictator would make the
journey. He regretted, however, in the course of the
same conversation, that General Montero insisted upon
going, too.

General Montero, whom the beginning of the struggle
had found an obscure army captain employed on the
wild eastern frontier of the State, had thrown in his lot
with the Ribiera party at a moment when special
circumstances had given that small adhesion a for-
tuitous importance. The fortunes of war served him
marvellously, and the victory of Rio Seco (after a day
of desperate flghting) put a seal to his success. At the
end he emerged General, Minister of War, and the
military head of the Blanco party, although there was
nothing aristocratic in his descent. Indeed, it was sai^l

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THE SILVER OP THE MINE 39

that he and his brother, orphans, had been brought up
by the munificence of a famous European traveller, in
whose service their father had lost his life. Another
story was that their father had been nothing but a char-
coal burner in the woods, and their mother a baptised
Indian woman from the far interior.

However that might be, the Costaguana Press was in
the habit of styling Montero's forest march from his
commandancia to join the Blanco forces at the begin-
ning of the troubles, the "most heroic military exploit
of modem times." About the same time, too, his
brother had turned up from Europe, where he had gone
apparently as secretary to a consul. Having, however,
collected a small band of outlaws, he showed some
talent as guerilla chief and had been rewarded at the
pacification by the post of Military Commandant of the
capital.

The Minister of War, then, accompanied the Dicta-
tor. The board of the O.S.N. Company, working hand-
in-hand with the railway people for the good of the Re-
public, had on this important occasion instructed
Captain Mitchell to put the mail-boat Juno at the
disposal of the distinguished party. Don Vincente,
journeying south from ,Sta* Marta, had embarked at
Cayla, the principal port of Costaguana, and came to
Sulaco by sea. But "the chairman of the railway
company^ had eotirageously crossed the mountains in a
ramshackle diligencia, mainly for the purpose of meeting
his engineer-in-chief engaged in the final survey of the
road.

Por all the indifference of a man of affairs to nature,
whose hostility can always be overcome by the re- 1
sources of finance, he could not help being impressed
by his surroundings during his halt at the surveying
camp established at the highest point his railway was to

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40 NOSTROMO

reach. He spent the night there, arriving just too late
to see the last dying glow of sunlight upon the snowy
flank of Higuerota. Pillared masses of black basalt
framed like an open portal a portion of the white field
lying aslant against the west. In the transparent air
of the high altitudes everything seemed very near,
steeped in a clear stillness as in an imponderable liquid;
and with his ear ready to catch the first sound of the
expected diligencia the engineer-in-chief, at the door of a
hut of rough stones, had contemplated the changing
hues on the enormous side of the mountain, thinking
that in this sight, as in a piece of inspired music, there
could be found together the utmost delicacy of shaded
expression and a stupendous magnificence of eflfect.

Sir John arrived too late to hear the magnificent and
inaudible strain sung by the sunset amongst the high
peaks of the Sierra. It had sung itself out into„ the
breathless pause of deep dusk before, climbing down the
fore wheel pi the diligencia with stiff limbs, he shook
hands with the engineer.

They gave him his dinner in a stone hut like a cubical
boidder, with no door or windows in its two openings;
a bright fire of sticks (brought on mideback from the
first valley below) burning outside, sent in a wavering
glare; and two candles in tin candlesticks — ^lighted, it
was explained to him, in his honour — stood on a sort of
rough camp table, at which he sat on the right hand of
the chief. He knew how to be amiable; and the young
men of the engineering staff, for whom the surveying of
the railway track had the glamour of the first steps on
the path of life, sat there, too, listening modestly, with
their smooth faces tanned by the weather, and very
pleased to witness so much affability in so great a man.

Afterwards, late at night, pacing to and fro outside,
he had a long talk with his chief engineer. He knew

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THE SILVER OP THE MINE 41

him well of old. This was not the first undertaking in
which their gifts, as elementally different as fire and
water, had worked in conjunction. From the contact
of these two personalities, who had not the same vision
of the world, there was generated a powa* for the world's
service — ^a subtle force that coidd set in motion mighty
machines, men's muscles, and awaken also in human
breasts an unbounded devotion to the task. Of the
young fellows at the table, to whom the survey of the
track was like the tracing of the path of life, more than
one would be called to meet death before the work was
done. But the work would be done: the force would be
almost as strong as a faith. Not quite, however. In
the silence of the sleeping camp upon the moonlit
plateau forming the top of the pass like the floor of a
vast arena surrounded by the basalt walls of precipices,
two strolling figures in thick ulsters stood still, and the
voice of the engineer pronounced distinctly the words —

"We can't move mountains!"

Sir John, raising his head to follow the pointing
gesture, felt the full force of the words. The white
Higuerota soared out of the shadows of rock and earth
like a frozen bubble under the moon. All was still, till
near by, behind the wall of a corral for the camp ani-
mals, built roughly of loose stones in the form of a
circle, a pack mule stamped his forefoot and blew
heavily twice.

The engineer-in-chief had used the phrase in answer
to the chairman's tentative suggestion that the tracing
of the Une could, perhaps, be altered in deference to the
prejudices of the Sulaco landowners. The chief engi-
neer believed that the obstinacy of men was the lesser
obstacle. Moreover, to combat that they had the great
influence of Charles Gould, whereas tunnelling under
Higuerota would have been a colossal undertaking.

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42 NOSTROMO

"Ah, yes! Gould. What sort of a man is he?"

Sir John had heard much of Charles Gould in Sta.
Marta, and wanted to know more. The engineer-in-
chief assured him that the administrator of the San
Tom6 silver mine had an immense influence over all
these Spanish Dons. He had also one of the best
houses in Sulaco, and the Gould hospitality was be-
yond all praise.

"They received me as if they had known me for
years,'* he said. "The little lady is kindness per-
sonified. I stayed with them for a month. He helped
me to organize the surveying parties. His practical
ownership of the San Tome silver mine gives him a
special position. He seems to have the ear of every
provincial authority apparently, and, as I said, he can
wind all the hidalgos of the province round his little
finger. If you follow his advice the diflSculties will fall
away, because he wants the railway. Of course, you
must be careful in what you say. He's English, and
besides he must be immensely wealthy. The Holroyd
house is in with him in that mine, so you may im-
agine "

He interrupted himself as, from before one of the
little fires burning outside the low wall of the corral,
arose the figure of a man wrapped in a poncho up to the
neck. The saddle which he had been using for a pillow
made a dark patch on the ground against the red glow of
embers.

"I shall see Holroyd himself on my way back through
the States," said Sir John. "I've ascertained that he,
too, wants the railway."

ij The man who, perhaps disturbed by the proximity of
the voices, had arisen from the ground, struck a match
to light a cigarette. The flame showed a bronzed,
black-whiskered face, a pair of eyes gazing straight;

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 4S

then, rearranging his wrappings, he sank full length and
laid his head again on the saddle.

"That's our camp-master, whom I must send back to
Sulaco now we are going to carry our survey into the
Sta. Marta Valley," said the engineer. "A most useful
fellow, lent me by Captain Mitchell of the O.S.N.
Company. It was very good of Mitchell. Charles
Gould told me I couldn't do better than take advantage
of the offer. He seems to know how to rule all these
muleteers and peons. We had not the slightest trouble
with oiir people. He shall escort your diligencia right
into Sulaco with some of our railway peons. The road
is bad. To have him at hand may save you an upset
or two. He promised me to take care of your person
all the way down as if you were his father."

This camp-master was the Italian sailor whom all the
Europeans in Sulaco, following Captain Mitchell's
mispronunciation, were in the habit of calling Nos-
tronao. And indeed, taciturn and ready, he did take
excellent care of his charge at the bad parts of the road,
as Sir John himself acknowledged to Mrs. Gould after-
wards.

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CHAPTER SIX

At that time Nostromo had been already long enough
in the country to raise to the highest pitch Captain
Mitchell's opinion of the extraordinary value of his
discovery. Clearly he jsras one of those invaluable
subordinateS-whom to^pogsess is a legitimate cause of
boasting. Captain Mitchell plumed himself upon his
eye for men — but he was not selfish — ^and in the in-
nocence of his pride was already developing that mania
for "lending you my Capataz de Cargadores" which
was to bring Nostromo into personal contact, sooner or
later, with every European in Sulaco, as a sort of univer-
sal factotum — ^a prodigy of eflBciency in his own sphere
of life.

"The fellow is devoted to me, body and soul!"
Captain Mitchell was given to aflBrm; and though no-
body, perhaps, could have explained why it should be
so, it was impossible on a survey of their relation to
throw doubt on that statement, unless, indeed, one
were a bitter, eccentric character like Dr. Monygham —
for instance— whose short, hopeless laugh expressed
somehow an immense mistrust of mankind. Not that
Dr. Monygham was a prodigal either of laughter or of
words. He was bitterly taciturn when at his best. At
his worst people feared the open scomfulness of his
tongue. Only Mrs. Gould could keep his unbelief in
men's motives within due bounds; but even to her
(on an occasion not connected with Nostromo, and in a
tone which for him was gentle), even to her, he had said
once, "Really, it is most unreasonable to demand that a

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 45

man should think of other people so much better than
he is able to think of himself."

And Mrs. Gould had hastened to drop the subject.
There were strange rumours of the English doctor.
Years ago, in the time of Guzman Bento, he had been
mixed up, it was whispered, in a conspiracy which was
betrayed and, as people expressed it, drowned in blood.
His hair had turned grey, his hairless, seamed face was
of a brick-dust colour; the large check pattern of his
flannel shirt and his old stained Panama hat were an
established defiance to the conventionalities of Sulaco.
Had it not been for the immaculate cleanliness of his
apparel he might have been taken for one of those
shiftless Europeans that are a moral eyesore to the
respectability of a foreign colony in almost every exotic
part of the world. The young ladies of Sulaco, adorn-
ing with clusters of pretty faces the balconies along the
Street of the Constitution, when they saw him pass,
with his limping gait and bowed head, a short linen
jacket drawn on carelessly over the flannel check shirt,
would remark to each other, "Here is the Seftor doctor
going to call on Dofia Emilia. He has got his little
coat on." The inference was true. Its deeper meaning
was hidden from their simple intelligence. Moreover,
they expended no store of thought on the doctor. He
was old, ugly, learned — and a little "loco" — mad, if not
a bit of a sorcerer, as the common people suspected him
of being. T^ejUUje^Htajajgket waa^in reality a con-
^cessinn to Mrg ^Gould 's humanizing^ ^influeace^ The
doctor, with hishabit oT^ceptical, bitter speech, had
no other means of showing his profound respect for
the character of the woman who was known in the
country as the English Sefiora. He presented this
tribute very seriously indeed; it was no trifle for a man
of his habits. Mrs, Gould felt that, too, perfectly.

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46 NOSTROMO

She would never have thought of imposing upon him
this marked show of deference.

She kept her old Spanish house (one of the finest
specimens in Sulaco) open for the dispensation of the
small graces of existence. She dispensed them with
simplicity and charm because she was guided by an
alert perception of values. She was highly gifted in the
art of human intercourse which consists in delicate
shades of self-forgetfulness and in the suggestion of
universal comprehension. Charles Gould (the Gould
family, established in Costaguana for three generations,^
always went to England for their education and for
their wives) imagined that he had fallen in love with a
girl's sound common sense like any other man, but tliese
were not exactly the reasons why, for instance, the
whole surveying camp, from the youngest of the young
men to their mature chief, should have found occasion
to allude to Mrs. Gould's house so frequently amongst
the high peaks of the Sierra. She would have pro-
tested that she had done nothing for them, with a low
laugh and a surprised widening of her grey eyes, had
anybody told her how convincingly she was remem-
bered on the edge of the snow-line above Sulaco. But
directly, with a little capable air of setting her wits to
work, she would have found an explanation. "Of
course, it was such a surprise for these boys to find any
sort of welcome here. And I suppose they are home-
sick. I suppose everybody must be always just a little
homesick."

She was always sorry for homesick people. \

Born in the country, as his father before him, spare
and tall, with a flaming moustache, a neat chin, clear
blue eyes, aubiu'n hair, and a thin, fresh, red face,
Charles Gould looked like a new arrival from over the
sea. His grandfather had fought in the cause of

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 47

independence under BoKvar, in that famous English
legion which on the battlefield of Carabobo had been
saluted by the great Liberator as Savioiu-s of his
country. One of Charles Gould's uncles had been the
elected President of that very province of Sidaco (then
called a State) in the days of Federation, and after-
wards had been put up against the wall of a church and
shot by the order of the barbarous Unionist general,
Guzman Bento. It was the same Guzman Bento who,
becoming later Perpetual President, famed for his ruth-
less and cruel tyranny, reached his apotheosis in the
popular legend of a sanguinary land-haunting spectre
whose body had been carried off by the devil in person
from the brick mausoleum in the nave of the Church of
Assumption in Sta. Marta. Thus, at least, the priests
explained its disappearance to the barefooted multi-
tude that streamed in, awestruck, to gaze at the hole in
the side of the ugly box of bricks before the great altar.
Guzman Bento of cruel memory had put to death
great numbers of people besides Charles Gould's uncle;
but with a relative martyred in the cause of aristocracy,
the Sulaco Oligarchs (this was the phraseology of Guz-
man Bento's time; now they were called Blancos, and
had given up the federal idea), which meant the families
of pure Spanish descent, considered Charles as one of
themselves. With such a family record, no one could
be more of a Costaguanero than Don Carlos Goidd; but
his aspect was so characteristic that in the talk of
common people he was just the Inglez — ^the English-
man of Sulaco. He looked more English than a casual
tourist, a sort of heretic pilgrim, however, quite un-
faiown _jD^-Sulaco. He looked more English than the
last arrived batch of young railway engineers, than
anybody out of the hunting-field pictures in the num-
bers of Punch reaching his wife's drawing-room two

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48 NOSTROMO

months or so after date. It astonished you to hear him
talk Spanish (Castillan, as the natives say) or the
Indian dialect of the coimtry-people so naturally. His
accent had never been English; but there was something
so indelible in all these ancestral Goulds — ^liberators,
explorers, coflfee planters, merchants, revolutionists —
of Costaguana, that he, the only representative of the
third generation in a continent possessing its own style
of horsemanship, went on looking thoroughly English
even on horseback. This is not said of him in the
mocking spirit of the Llaneros — men of the great plains
— ^who think that no one in the world knows how to sit
a horse but themselves. Charles Gould, to use the
suitably lofty phrase, rode like a centaur. Riding
for him was not a special form of exercise; it was a
natural faculty, as walking straight is to all men sound
of mind and hmb; but, all the same, when cantering
beside the rutty ox-cart track to the mine he looked in
his English clothes and with his imported saddlery as
though he had come this moment to Costaguana at his
easy swift pasotrotey straight out of some green meadow
at the other side of the world.

His way would lie along the old Spanish road — ^the
Camino Real of popular speech — ^the only re^laining
vestige of a fact and name left by that royalty old
Giorgio Viola hated, and whose very shadow had de-
parted from the land; for the big equestrian statue of
Charles IV at the entrance of the Alameda, towering
white against the trees, was only known to the folk
from the country and to the beggars of the town that
slept on the steps around the pedestal, as the Horse
of Stone. The other Carlos, turning off to the left
with a rapid clatter of hoofs on the disjointed pave-
ment — ^Don Carlos Gould, in his English clothes, looked
AS incongruous, but much more at home than the kingly

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THE SILVER OP THE MINE 49

cavalier reining in his steed on the pedestal above the
sleeping leperos, with his marble arm raised towards
the marble rim of a plumed hat.

The weather-stained eflBgy of the mounted king, with
its vague suggestion of a saluting gesture, seemed to
present an inscrutable breast to the political changes
which had robbed it of its very name; but neither did
the other horseman, well known to the people, keen
and alive on his well-shaped, slate-coloured beast with
a white eye, wear his heart on the sleeve of his English
coat. His mind preserved its steady poise as if shel-
tered in the passionless stability of private and public
decencies at home in Europe. He accepted with a like
calm the shocking manner in which the Sulaco ladies
smothered their faces with pearl powder till they
looked like white plaster casts with beautiful living eyes,
the peculiar gossip of the town, and the continuous
political changes, the constant "saving of the country,"
which to his wife seemed a puerile and bloodthirsty
game of miu-der and rapine played with terrible earnest-
ness by depraved children. In the early days of her
Costaguana life, the little lady used to clench her hands
with exasi)eration at not being able to take the public
affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental
atrocity of methods deserved. She saw in them a
comedy of naive pretences, but hardly anything genuine
except her own appalled indignation. Charles, very
quiet and twisting his long moustaches, would decline to
discuss them at all. Once, however, he observed to
her gently —

"My dear, you seem to forget that I was bom here.'*

These few words made her pause as if they had been

a sudden revelation. Perhaps the mere fact of being

bom in the country did make a difference. She had a

great confidence in her husband; it had always been

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60 NOSTROMO

very great. He had struck her imagination from the
first by his unsentimentalism, by that very quietude of
mind which she had erected in her thought for a sign of
perfect competency in the business of living. Don
Jose Avellanos, their neighbour across the street, a
statesman, a poet, a man of culture, who had repre-
sented his country at several European Courts (and
had suffered imtold indignities as a state prisoner in the
time of the tyrant Guzman Ben to), used to declare in
Dona Emilia's drawing-room that Carlos had all the
English qualities of character with a truly patriotic
heart.

^-^Mrs. Gould, raising her eyes to her husband's thin,
red and tan face, could not detect the slightest quiver of
a feature at what he must have heard said of his
patriotism. Perhaps he had just dismounted on his
return from the mine; he was EngHsh enough to dis-
regard the hottest hours of the day. Basilio, in a livery
of white linen and a red sash, had squatted for a moment
behind his heels to unstrap the heavy, blimt spurs in
the patio; and then the Senor Administrator would go
up the staircase into the gallery. Rows of plants in
pots, ranged on the balustrade between the pilasters
of the arches, screened the corridor with their leaves and
flowers from the quadrangle below, whose paved space
is the true hearthstone of a South American house,
where the quiet hours of domestic life are marked by ^
the shifting of light and shadow on the flagstones.

Senor Avellanos was in the habit of crossing the patio
at five o'clock almost every day. Don Jos6 chose to
come over at tea-time because the English rite at Dona
Emilia's house reminded him of the time he lived in
London as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of
St. James. He did not like tea; and, usually, rocking
his American chair, his neat little shiny boots crossed on

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THE SILVER OP THE MINE 51

the foot-rest, he would talk on and on with a sort of
complacent virtuosity wonderful in a man of his age,
while he held the cup in his hands for a long time. His
dose-cropped head was perfectly white; his eyes coal-
black.

On seeing Charles Gould step into the sala he would
nod provisionally and go on to the end of the oratorial
period. Only then he would say —

"Carlos, my friend, you have ridden from San Tome
in the heat of the day. Always the true English activity.
No? What?"

He drank up all the tea at once in one draught. This
performance was invariably followed by a slight shudder
and a low, involuntary "br-r-r-r," which was not covered
by the hasty exclamation, "Excellent!"

Then giving up the empty cup into his young friend's
hand, extended with a smile, he continued to expatiate
upon the patriotic nature of the San Tome mine for the
simple pleasure of talking fluently, it seemed, while his
reclining body jerked backwards and forwards in a
rocking-chair of the sort exported from the United
States. The ceiling of the largest drawing-room of the
Casa Gould extended its white level far above his head.
The loftiness dwarfed the mixture of heavy, straight-
backed Spanish chairs of brown wood with leathern
seats, and European furniture, low, and cushioned all
over, like squat little monsters gorged to bursting with
steel springs and horsehair. There were knick-knacks
on little tables, mirrors let into the wall above marble
consoles, square spaces of carpet under the two groups
of armchairs, each presided over by a deep sofa; smaller
rugs scattered all over the floor of red tiles; three win-
dows from the ceiling down to the ground, opening on a
balcony, and flanked by the perpendicular folds of the
dark hangings. The stateliness of ancient days lingered

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S2 NOSTROMO

between the four high, smooth walls, tinted a delicate
primrose-colour; and Mrs. Gould, with her little head
and shining coils of hair, sitting in a cloud of muslin and
V lace before a slender mahogany table, resembled a fairy
yj^ posed lightly before dainty philtres dispensed out of
vessels of silver and porcelain.

^ Mrs. Gould knew the history of the San Tome mine.
Worked in the early days mostly by means of lashes on
the backs of slaves, its yield had been paid for in its own
weight of human bones. Whole tribes of Indians had
perished in the exploitation; and then the mine was
abandoned, since with this primitive method it had
ceased to make a profitable return, no matter how many
corpses were thrown into its maw. Then it became for-
gotten. It was rediscovered after the War of Indepen-
dence. An English company obtained the right to
work it, and found so rich a vein that neither the ex-
. actions of successive governments, nor the periodical
raids of recruiting oflScers upon the population of paid
miners they had created, could discourage their per-
severance. But in the end, during the long turmoil of
pronunciamentos that followed the death of the famous
Guzman Bento, the native miners, incited to revolt by
the emissaries sent out from the capital, had risen upon
their English chiefs and murdered tiiem to a man. The
decree of confiscation which appeared :mmediately
afterwards in the Diario Official^ published in Sta.
Marta, began with the words: "Justly incensed at the
grinding oppression of foreigners, actuated by sordid
motives of gain rather than by love for a country where
they come impoverished to seek their fortunes, the
mining population of San Tome, etc. . . ." and
ended with the declaration: "The chief of the State has
resolved to exercise to the full his power of clemency.
The mine, which by every law, international, human.

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 53

and divine, reverts now to the Government as national
property, shall remain closed till the sword drawn for
the sacred defence of liberal principles has accomplished
its mission of securing the happiness of our beloved
coimtry."

And for many years this was the last of the San Tome
mine. What advantage that Government had ex-
pected from the spoliation, it is impossible to tell now,
Costaguana was made with diflSculty to pay a beggarly
money compensation to the families of the victims, and
then the matter dropped out of diplomatic despatches.
But afterwards another Government bethought itself of
that valuable asset. It was an ordinary Costaguana
Government — ^the fourth in six years — ^but it judged of
its opportunities sanely. It remembered the San Tome
mine with a secret conviction of its worthlessness in
their own hands, but with an ingenious insight into the
various uses a silver mine can be put to, apart from the
sordid process of extracting the metal from under the
groimd. The father of Charles Gould, for a long
time one of the most wealthy merchants of Costaguana,
had already lost a considerable part of his fortune in
forced loans to the successive Governments. He was
a man of calm judgment, who never dreamed of pressing
his claims; and when, suddenly, the perpetual con-
cession of the San Tome mine was offered to him in full
settlement, his alarm became extreme. He was versed
in the ways of Governments. Indeed, the intention of
this affair, though no doubt deeply meditated in the
closet, lay open on the surface of the document pre-
sented urgently for his signature. The third and most
important clause stipulated that the concession-holder
should pay at once to the Government five years'
royalties on the estimated output of the mine.

Mr. Gould, senior, defended himself from this fatal

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54 NOSTROMO

favour with many arguments and entreaties, but with-
out success. He knew nothing of mining; he had no
means to put his concession on the European market;
the mine as a working concern did not exist. The
buildings had been burnt down, the mining plant had
been destroyed, the mining population had disappeared
from the neighbourhood years and years ago; the very
road had vanished under a flood of tropical vegetation
as eflfectually as if swallowed by the sea; and the main
gallery had fallen in within a hundred yards from the
entrance. It was no longer an abandoned mine; it was
a wild, inaccessible, and rocky gorge of the Sierra, where
vestiges of charred timber, some heaps of smashed
bricks, and a few shapeless pieces of rusty iron could
have been found under the matted mass of thorny
creepers covering the ground. Mr. Gould, senior, did
not desire the perpetual possession of that desolate
locality; in fact, the mere vision of it arising before his
mind in the still watches of the night had the power to
exasperate him into hours of hot and agitated insomnia.
It so happened, however, that the Finance Minister of
the time was a man to whom, in years gone by, Mr.
Gould had, unfortunately, declined to grant some small
pecuniary assistance, basing his refusal on the ground
that the applicant was a notorious gambler and cheat,
besides being more than half suspected of a robbery
with violence on a wealthy ranchero in a remote country
district, where he was actually exercising the function
of a judge. Now, after reaching his exalted position,
that politician had proclaimed his intention to repay
evil with good to Senor Gould — the poor man. He
aflSrmed and reaflSrmed this resolution in the drawing-
rooms of Sta. Marta, in a soft and implacable voice, and
with such malicious glances that Mr. Gould's best
friends advised him earnestly to attempt no bribery

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 55

to get the matter dropped. It would have been useless.
Indeed, it would not have been a very safe proceeding.
Such was also the opinion of a stout, loud-voiced lady of
French extraction, the daughter, she said, of an officer
of high rank {pffider supSrieur de Varmie)^ who was
accommodated with lodgings within the walls of a
secularized convent next door to the Ministry of
Finance. That florid person, when approached on be-
half of Mr. Gould in a proper manner, and with a
suitable present, shook her head despondently. She
was good-natured, and her despondency was genuine.
She imagined she could not take money in consideration
of something she could not accompUsh. The friend of
Mr. Gould, charged with the delicate mission, used to
say afterwards that she was the only honest person
closely or remotely connected with the Government
he had ever met. "No go," she had said with a cavalier,
husky intonation which was natural to her, and using
turns of expression more suitable to a child of parents
unknown than to the orphaned daughter of a general
officer. "No; it's no go. Pas moyeUy mon gargon.
C'est dommagey tout de meme. Ah I zut I Je ne vole
pas mon monde. Je ne suis pas ministre — moi I Vous
pouvez emporter votre petit sac.^*

For a moment, biting her carmine lip, she deplored
inwardly the tyranny of the rigid principles governing
the sale of her influence in high places. Then, signifi-
cantly, and with a touch of impatience, "^ZZez," she
added, ''et dites Hen a votre bonhomme — entendez-vous? —
quHlfaut avaler la pilule.^^

After such a warning there was nothing for it but to
sign and pay. Mr. Gould had swallowed the pill, and
it was as though it had been compounded of some subtle
poison that acted directly on his brain. He became at
once mine-ridden, and as he was well read in light

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56 NOSTROMO

literature it took to his mind the form of the Old Man
of the Sea fastened upon his shoulders. He also began
to dream of vampires. Mr. Gould exaggerated to him-
self the disadvantages of his new position, because he
viewed it emotionally. His position in Costaguana
was no worse than before. But man is a desperately
conservative creature, and the extravagant novelty of
this outrage upon his purse distressed his sensibilities.
Everybody around him was being robbed by the
grotesque and murderous bands that played their game
of governments and revolutions after the death of
Guzman Bento. His experience had taught him that,
however short the plunder might fall of their legitimate
expectations, no gang in possession of the Presidential
Palace would be so incompetent as to suffer itself to be
baffled by the want of a pretext. The first casual
colonel of the barefooted army of scarecrows that came
along was able to expose with force and precision to any
mere civilian his titles to a sum of 10,000 dollars; the
while his hope would be immutably fixed upon a
gratuity, at any rate, of no less than a thousand. Mr.
Gould knew that very well, and, armed with resigna-
tion, had waited for better times. But to be robbed
under the forms of legality and business was intolerable
to his imagination. Mr. Gould, the father, had one
fault in his sagacious and honourable character: he
attached too much importance to form. It is a failing
common to mankind, whose views are tinged by preju-
dices. There was for him in that affair a malignancy of
perverted justice which, by means of a moral shock,
attacked his vigorous physique. "It will end by
killing me," he used to affirm many times a day. And,
in fact, since that time he began to suffer from fever,
from liver pains, and mostly from a worrying inability
to think of anything else. The Finance Minister could

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have formed no conception of the profound subtlety of
his revenge. Even Mr. Gould's letters to his fourteen-
year-old boy Charles, then away in England for his
education, came at last to talk of practically nothing but
the mine. He groaned over the injustice, the persecu-
tion, the outrage of that mine; he occupied whole pages
in the exposition of the fatal consequences attaching to
the possession of that mine from every point of view,
with every dismal inference, with words of horror at the
apparently eternal character of that curse. For the
Concession had been granted to him and his descen-
dants for ever. He implored his son never to return to
Costaguana, never to claim any part of his inheritance
there, because it was tainted by the infamous Con-
cession; never to touch it, never to approach it, to for-
get that America existed, and pursue a mercantile
career in Europe. And each letter ended with bitter
self-reproaches for having stayed too long in that
cavern of thieves, intriguers, and brigands.

To be told repeatedly that one's future is blighted
because of the possession of a silver mine is not, at the
age of fourteen, a matter of prime importance as to its
main statement; but in its form it is calculated to excite
a certain amount of wonder and attention. In course
of time the boy, at first only puzzled by the angry
jeremiads, but rather sorry for his dad, began to turn
the matter over in his mind in such moments as he
could spare from play and study. In about a year he
had evolved from the lecture of the letters a definite
conviction that there was a silver mine in the Sulaco
province of the Republic of Costaguana, where poor
Uncle Harry had been shot by soldiers a great many
years befor|3. There was also connected closely with
that mine a thing called the "iniquitous Gould Con-
cession/* p^pparently written on a paper which his

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58 NOSTROMO

father desired ardently to "tear and fling into the
faces'* of presidents, members of judicature, and
ministers of State. And this desire persisted, though
the names of these people, he noticed, seldom remained
the same for a whole year together. This desire (since
the thing was iniquitous) seemed quite natural to the
boy, though why the affair was iniquitous he did not
know. Afterwards, with advancing wisdom, he man-
aged to dear the plain truth of the business from the
fantastic intrusions of the Old Man of the Sea, vampires,
and ghouls, which had lent to his father's correspon-
dence the flavour of a gruesome Arabian Nights tale.
In the end, the growing youth attained to as close an
intimacy with the San Tome mine as the old man who
wrote these plaintive and enraged letters on the other
side of the^ea. He had been made several times al-
ready to pay heavy flnes for neglecting to work the
mine, he reported, besides other sums extracted from
him on account of future royalties, on the ground that a
man with such a valuable concession in his pocket could
not refuse his flnancial assistance to the Government of
the Republic. The last of his fortune was passing
away from him against worthless receipts, he wrote, in a
rage, whilst he was being pointed out as an individual
who had known how to secure enormous advantages
from the necessities of his country. And the young
man in Europe grew more and more interested „in that
thing which could provoke such a tumult of words and
passion. J

He thought of it every day; but he thfDUght of it
without bitterness. It might have been an unfortunate
affair for his poor dad, and the whole st^^ry threw a
queer light upon the social and political lire of Costa-
guana. The view he took of it was sympat^betic to his
father, yet calm and reflective. His persoB \al feelings

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 59

had not been outraged, and it is diflScult to resent with
proper and durable indignation the physical or mental
anguish of another organism, even if that other organ-
ism is one's own father. By the time he was twenty
Charles Gould had, in his turn, fallen under the spell
of the San Tome mine. But it was another form of
enchantijrent, pite'e suitable to his youth, into whose
magic forniul^ tnere entered hope, vigour, and self-
confidence, / mstead of weary indignation and despair.
Left after^e was twenty to his own guidance (except
for the sevjere injunction not to return to Costaguana),
he had p^^;sued his studies in Belgium and France with
the idea ai oualifying for a mining engineer. But this
scientific a^pfertl of his labours -remained vague and
imperfect in his mind. Mines had acquired for him a
dramatic interest. He studied their peculiarities from
a personal ki(0^t of view, too, as one would study the
varied chaK^Aers of men. He visited them as one
goes with Wmpsity to call upon remarkable persons.
He visitel^mmes in Germany, in Spain, in Cornwall.
Abandoned W9rkings had for him strong fascination.
Their desolat}6n appealed to him like the sight of hu-
man misery, whose causes are varied and profound.
They might have been worthless, but also they might
have been misunderstood. His future wife was the
firsts and perhaps the only person to detect this secret
mood^whidi governed the profoundly sensible, almost
voiceless attitude of this man towards the world of^
material things. And at once her delight in him, linger-
ing with half -open wings like those birds that cannot rise
easily from a flat level, found a pinnacle from which to
soar up into the skies.

They had become acquainted in Italy, where the
future Mrs. Gould was staying with an old and pale
aunt who, years before, had married a middle-aged.

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60 NOSTROMO

impoverished Italian marquis. She now mourned that
man, who had known how to give up his life to the
independence and unity of his country, who had known
how to be as enthusiastic in his generosity as the young-
est of those who fell for that very cause of which old
Giorgio Viola was a drifting relic, as a broken spar is
suffered to float away disregarded after a naval victory.
The Marchesa led a still, whispering existence, nun-like
in her black robes and a white band over the forehead,
in a corner of the first floor of an ancient and ruinous
palace, whose big, empty halls downstairs sheltered
under their painted ceilings the harvests, the fowls, and
even the cattle, together with the whole family of the
tenant farmer..

The two young people had met in Lucca. After that
meeting Charles Gould visited no mines, though they
went together in a carriage, once, to see some marble
quarries, where the work resembled mining in so far
that it also was the tearing of the raw material of
treasure from the earth. Charles Gould did not open
his heart to her in any set speeches. He simply went
on acting and thinking in her sight. This is the true
method of sincerity. One of his frequent remarks
was, "I think sometimes that poor father takes a
wrong view of that San Tome business.'* And they
discussed that opinion long and earnestly, as if .they
could influence a mind across half the globe; but in
reality they discussed it because the sentiment of love
can enter into any subject and live ardently in remote
phrases. For this natural reason these discussions were
precious to Mrs. Gould in her engaged state. Charles
feared that Mr. Gould, senior, was wasting his strength
and making himself ill by his efforts to get rid of the
Concession. "I fancy that this is not the kind of
handling it requires," he mused aloud, as if to himself.

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 61

And when she wondered frankly that a man of character
should devote his energies to plotting and intrigues,
Charles would remark, with a gentle concern that
understood her wonder, "You must not forget that he
was bom there."

She would set her quick mind to work upon that, and
then make the inconsequent retort, which he accepted

as perfectly sagacious, because, in fact, it was so

"Well, and you? You were bom there, too."
He knew his answer.

"That's different. I've been away ten years. Dad
never had such a long spell; and it was more than thirty
years ago."

She was the first person to whom he opened his lips
after receiving the news of his father's death.
"It has killed hhn!" he said.

He had walked straight out of town with the news,
straight out before him in the noonday sun on the white
road, and his feet had brought him face to face with
her in the hall of the ruined palazzo, a room mag-
nificent and naked, with here and there a long strip of
damask, black with damp and age, hanging down on a
bare panel of the wall. It was furnished with exactly
one gilt armchair, with a broken back, and an octagon
columnar stand bearing a heavy marble vase orna-
mented with sculptured masks and garlands of flowers,
and cracked from top to bottom. Charles Gould was
dusty with the white dust of the road lying on his boots,
on his shoulders, on his cap with two peaks. Water
dripped from under it all over his face, and he grasped a
thick oaken cudgel in his bare right hand.

She went very pale under the roses of her big straw
hat, gloved, swinging a clear sunshade, caught just as
she was going out to meet him at the bottom of the hill,
where three poplars stand near the wall of a vineyard. -

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62 NOSTROMO

"It has killed him!" he repeated. "He ought to
have had many years yet. We are a long-lived family. '*

She was too startled to say anything; he was contem-
plating with a penetrating and motionless stare the
cracked marble um as though he had resolved to fix its
shape for ever in his memory. It was only when, turn-
ing suddenly to her, he blurted out twice, "I've come

to you I've come straight to you ," without

being able to finish his phrase, that the great pitifulness
of that lonely and tormented death in Costaguana came
to her with the full force of its misery. He caught hold
of her hand, raised it to his lips, and at that she dropped
her parasol to pat him on the cheek, murmured "Poor
boy," and began to dry her eyes under the downward
curve of her hat-brim, very small in her simple, white
frock, almost like a lost child crying in the degraded
grandeur of the noble hall, while he stood by her, again
perfectly motionless in the contemplation of the marble
urn.

Afterwards they went out for a long walk, which was
silent till he exclaimed suddenly —

"Yes. But if he had only grappled with it in a
proper way!"

And then they stopped. Everywhere there were
long shadows lying on the hills, on the roads, on the
enclosed fields of olive trees; the shadows of poplars, of
wide chestnuts, of farm buildings, of stone walls; and in
mid-air the sound of a bell, thin and alert, was like the
throbbing pulse of the sunset glow. Her lips were
slightly parted as though in surprise that he should not
be looking at her with his usual expression. His usual
expression was unconditionally approving and atten-
tive. He was in his talks with her the most anxious and
deferential of dictators, an attitude that pleased her
immensely. It ^flSrmed her power without detracting

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 69

from his dignity. That slight girl, with her little feet,
little hands, little face attractively overweighted by
great coils of hair; with a rather large mouth, whose
mere parting seemed to breathe upon you the fragrance
of frankness and generosity, had the fastidious soul of
an experienced woman. She was, before all things and
all flatteries, careful of her pride in the object of her
choice. But now he was actually not looking at her at
all; and his expression was tense and irrational, as is
natiu*al in a man who elects to stare at nothing past a
young girl's head.

"Well, yes. It was iniquitous. They corrupted
him thoroughly, the poor old boy. Oh! why wouldn't
he let me go back to him? But now I shall know how
to grapple with this.'*

After pronouncing these words with immense as-
surance, he glanced down at her, and at once fell a prey
to distress, incertitude, and fear.

The only thing he wanted to know now, he said, was
whether she did love him enough — whether she would
have the courage to go with him so far away? He put \
these questions to her in a voice that trembled with
anxiety — ^for he was a determined man.

She did. She would. And immediately the future
hostess of all the Europeans in Sulaco had the physical
experience of the earth falling away from under her. It
vanished completely, even to the very sound of the bell.
When her feet touched the ground again, the bell was
still ringing in the valley; she put her hands up to her
hair, breathing quickly, and glanced up and down the
stony lane. It was reassuringly empty. Meantime,
Charles, stepping with one foot into a dry and dusty
ditch, picked up the open parasol, which had bounded
away from them with a martial sound of drum taps.
He handed it to her soberly, a little crestfallen*

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64 NOSTROMO

They turned back, and after she had slipped her hand
on his arm, the first words he pronounced were —

"It's lucky that we shall be able to settle in a coast
town. You've heard its name. It is Sulaco. I am so
glad poor father did get that house. He bought a big
house there years ago, in order that there should always
be a Casa Gould in the principal town of what used to be
called the Occidental Province. I lived there once, as a
small boy, with my dear mother, for a whole year, while
poor father was away in the United States on business.
You shall be the new mistress of the Casa Gould."

And later, in the inhabited comer of the Palazzo
above the vineyards, the marble hills, the pines and
olives of Lucca, he also said —

"The name of Gould has been always highly re-
spected in Sulaco. My uncle Harry was chief of the
State for some time, and has left a great name amongst
the first families. By this I mean the pure Creole
families, who take no part in the miserable farce of
governments. Uncle Harry was no adventurer. Jta^
Costaguana we Goulds are no adventurers. He was of
the country, and he loved it, but he remained essentially
an Englishman in his ideas. He made use of the
political cry of his time. It was Federation. But he
was no politician. He simply stood up for social order
out of pure love for rational liberty and from his hate of
oppression. There was no nonsense about him. He
went to work in his own way because it seemed right,
just as I feel I must lay hold of that mine."

In such words he talked to her because his memory
was very full of the country of his childhood, his heart
of his life with that girl, and his mind of the San Tome
Concession. He added that he would have to leave her
for a few days to find an American, a man from San
Francisco, who was still somewhere in Europe. A few

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months before he had made his acquamtance in an old
historic German town, situated in a mining district.
The American had his womankind with him, but seemed
lonely while they were sketching all day long the old
doorways and the turreted corners of the mediaeval
houses. Charles Gould had with him the inseparable
companionship of the mine. The other man was
interested in mining enterprises, knew something of
Costaguana, and was no stranger to the name of Gould.
They had talked together with some intimacy which was
made possible by the difference of their ages. Charles
wanted now to find that capitalist of shrewd mind and
accessible character. His father's fortune in Costa-
guana, which he had supposed to be still considerable,
seemed to have melted in the rascally crucible of
revolutions. Apart from some ten thousand pounds
deposited in England, there appeared to be nothing
left except the house in Sulaco, a vague right of forest
exploitation in a remote and savage district, and. the
San Tome Concession, which had attended his poor
father to the very brink of the grave.

He explained those things. It was late when they
parted. She had never ^before given him such a
fascinating vision of herself. All the eagerness of youth
for a strange life, for great distances, for a futm*e in
which there was an air of adventure, of combat — a
subtle thought of redress and conquest, had filled her
with an intense excitement, which she returned to the
giver with a more open and exquisite display of tender-
ness.

He left her to walk down the hill, and directly he
found himself alone he became sober. That irreparable
change a death makes in the course of our daily thoughts
can be felt in a vague and poignant discomfort of mind.
It hurt Charles Gould to feel that never more, by no

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66 NOSTROMO

eflfort of will, would he be able to think of his father in
the same way he used to think of him when the poor
man was alive. His breathing image was no longer
in his power. This consideration, closely affecting his
own identity, filled his breast with a mournful and angry
desire for action. In this his instinct was unerring.
Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and
the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct
of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the
Fates. For his action, the mine was obviously the only
field. It was imperative sometimes to know how to
Idisobey the solemn wishes of the dead. He resolved
firmly to make his disobedience as thorough (by way
of atonement) as it well could be. The mine had been
the cause of an absurd moral disaster; its working must
be made a serious and moral success. He owed it to
the dead man's memory. Such were the — ^properly
speaking — emotions of Charles Gould. His thoughts
ran upon the means of raising a large amount of capital
in San Francisco or elsewhere; and incidentally there
occurred to him also the general reflection that the
counsel of the departed must be an unsound guide.
Not one of them could be aware beforehand what
enormous changes the death of any given individual
may produce in the very aspect of the world.

The latest phase in the history of the mine Mrs.
Gould knew from personal experience. It was in
essence the history of her married life. The mantle of
the Goulds' hereditary position in Sulaco had descended
amply upon her little person; but she would not allow
the peculiarities of the strange garment to weigh down
the vivacity of her character, which was the sign of no
mere mechanical sprightliness, but of an eager intelli-
gence. It must not be supposed that Mrs. Gould's
mind was masculine. A woman with a masculine mind

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 67

fajiot^a bemg of sugerior efficiency; she is simply a
phenomenon of imperfect differentiation — ^interestingly
bafi^n ^ff(h~^mthout importance. Dona Emilia's in-
telligence being feminine led her to achieve the conquest
of Snlaco, simply by lighting the way for her im-
selfishness and sympathy. She could converse charm-
ingly, but she was not talkative. The wisdom of the
heart having no concern with the erection or demolition
of theories any more than with the defence of preju-
dices, has no random words at its command. The t-
words it pronounces have the value of acts of integrity,
tolerance, and compassion. A woman's true tender-
ness, like the true virility of man, is expressed in action
of a conquering kind. The ladies of Sulaco adored
Mrs. Gould. " They still look upon me as something of
a monster," Mrs. Gould had said pleasantly to one of
the three gentlemen from San Francisco she had to
entertain in her new Sulaco house just about a year
after her marriage.

They were her first visitors from abroad, and they
had come to look at the San Tome mine. She jested
most agreeably, they thought; and Charles Gould, be-
sides knowing thoroughly what he was about, had
shown himself a real hustler. These facts caused them
to be well disposed towards his wife. An unmistakable
enthusiasm, pointed by a slight flavour of irony, taiade
her talk of the mine absolutely fascinating to her
visitors, and provoked them to grave and indulgent
smiles in which there was a good deal of deference.
Perhaps had they known how much she was inspired
by an idealistic view of success they would have been
amazed at the state of her mind as the Spanish- Ameri-
can ladies had been amazed at the tireless activity of
her body. She would — in her own words — ^have been
for them "something of a monster." However, the

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68 NOSTROMO

Goulds were in essentials a reticent couple, and their
guests departed without the suspicion of any other pur-
pose but simple profit in the working of a silver mine.
Mrs. Gould had out her own carriage, with two white
mules, to drive them down to the harbour, whence the
Ceres was to carry them off into the Olympus of pluto-
crats. Captain Mitchell had snatched at the occasion
of leave-taking to remark to Mrs. Gould, in a low, con-
fidential mutter, "This marks an epoch."

Mrs. Gould loved the patio of her Spanish house. A
broad flight of stone steps was overlooked silently f rora
a niche in the wall by a Madonna in blue robes with the
crowned child sitting on her arm. Subdued voices
ascended in the early mornings from the paved w^ell
of the quadrangle, with the stamping of horses and
mules led out in pairs to drink at the cistern. A tangle
of slender bamboo stems drooped its narrow, blade-iike
leaves over the square pool of water, and the fat coach-
man sat muffled up on the edge, holding lazily the ends
of halters in his hand. Barefooted servants passed to
and fro, issuing from dark, low doorways below; two
laundry girls with baskets of washed linen; the baker
with the tray of bread made for the day; Leonarda —
her own camerista — bearing high up, swung from her
hand raised above her raven black head, a bunch of
starched under-skirts dazzlingly white in the slant of
sunshine. Then the old porter would hobble in, sweep-
ing the flagstones, and the house was ready for the day.
All the lofty rooms on three sides of the quadrangle
opened into each other and into the corredoTy with its
wrought-iron railings and a border of flowers, whence,
like the lady of the mediaeval castle, she could witness
from above all the departures and arrivals of the Casa,
to which the sonorous arched gateway lent an 9,ir of
stately impK)rtance.

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 69

She had watched her carriage roll away with the
three guests from the north. She smiled. Their three
arms went up simultaneously to their three hats. Cap-
tain Mitchell, the fourth, in attendance, had already
begun a pompous discourse. Then she lingered. . She
lingered, approaching her face to the clusters of flowers
here and there as if to give time to her thoughts to
catch up with her slow footsteps along the straight
vista of the corredor.

A fringed Indian hammock from Aroa, gay with
coloured featherwork, had been swung judiciously in a
comer that caught the early sun; for the mornings are
cool in Sulaco. The cluster of flor de noche buena
blazed in great masses before the open glass doors of the
reception rooms. A big green parrot, brilliant like a^
emerald in a cage that flashed like gold, screamed out
ferociously, "Viva Costaguana!" then called twice
mellifluously, "Leonarda! Leonarda!" in imitation of
Mrs. Gould's voice, and suddenly took refuge in im-
mobility and silence. Mrs. Gould reached the end of
the gallery and put her head through the door of her
husband's room.

Charles Gould, with one foot on a low wooden stool,
was already strapping his spurs. He wanted to hurry
back to the mine. Mrs. Gould, without coming in,
. glanced about the room. One tall, broad bookcase,
with glass doors, was full of books; but in the other,
without shelves, and lined with red baize, were arranged
firearms: Winchester carbines, revolvers, a couple of
shot-guns, and even two pairs of double-barrelled holster
pistols. Between them, by itself, upon a strip of
scarlet velvet, hung an old cavalry sabre, once the
proj>erty of Don Enrique Gould, the hero of the Occi-
dental Province, presented by Don Jose Avellanos, the
hereditary friend of the family.

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70 NOSTROMO

Otherwise, the plastered white walls were completely-
bare, except for a water-colour sketch of the San Tome
mountain — the work of Dona Emilia herself. In the
middle of the red-tiled floor stood two long tables
littered with plans and papers, a few chairs, and a glass
show-case containing si>ecimens of ore from the mine.
Mrs. Gould, looking at all these things in turn, won-
dered aloud why the talk of these wealthy and enter-
prising men discussing the prospects, the working, and
the safety of the mine rendered her so impatient and un-
easy ,whereas she could talk of the mine by the hour with
her husband with unwearied interest and satisfaction.
And dropping her eyelids expressively, she added —
"What do you feel about it, Charley?''
Then, surprised at her husband's silence, she raised
her eyes, opened wide, as pretty as pale flowers. He
had done with the spurs, and, twisting his moustache
with both hands, horizontally, he contemplated her
from the height of his long legs with a visible apprecia-
tion of her appearance. The consciousness of being
thus contemplated pleased Mrs. Gould.
**They are considerable men," he said.
"I know. But have you listened to their con-
versation? They don't seem to have understood any-
thing they have seen here."

"They have seen the mine. They have understood
that to some purpose," Charles Gould interjected,^in
defence of the visitors; and then his wife mentioned the
name of the most considerable of the three. He was
considerable in finance and in industry. His name was
familiar to many millions of people. He was so con-
siderable that he would never have travelled so far
away from the centre of his activity if the doctors had
not insisted, with veiled menaces, on his taking a long
holiday.

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"Mr. Holroyd's sense of religion," Mrs. Gould pur-
sued, " was shocked and disgusted at the tawdriness of
the dressed-up saints in the cathedral — the worship, he^
called it, of wood and tinsel. But it seemed to me that
he looked upon his own God as a sort of influential
partner, who gets his share of profits in the endowment
of churches. That's a sort of idolatry. He told me he
endowed churches every year, Charley."

"No end of them," said Mr. Gould, marvelling in-
wardly at the mobility of her physiognomy. "All over
the country. He's famous for that sort of munificence."

"Oh, he didn't boast," Mrs. Gould declared, scrupu-
lously. " I believe he's really a good man, but so stupid i
A poor Chulo who oflFers a little silver arm or leg to
thank his god for a cure is as rational and more touch-
ing."

"He's at the head of immense silver and iron inter-
ests," Charles Gould observed.

"Ah, yes! The religio n of silvg rjtn d iron. He's a
very civil man, tHough~Be Iboked^wfuIIy solemn when
he first saw the Madonna on the staircase, who's only
wood and paint; but he said nothing to me. My dear
Charley, I heard those men talk among themselves.
Can it be that they really wish to become, for an im-
mense consideration, drawers of water and hewers of
wood to all the countries and nations of the earth?"

"A man must work to some end,"Charles Gould said,
vaguely.

Mrs. Gould, frowning, surveyed him from head to
foot. With his riding breeches, leather leggings (an
article of apparel never before seen in Costaguana), a
Norfolk coat of grey flannel, and those great flaming
moustaches, he suggested an officer of cavalry turned
gentleman farmer. This combination was gratifying to
Mrs. Gould's tastes. "How thin the poor boy is!" she

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72 NOSTROMO

thought. **He overworks hunself." But there was no
denying that his fine-drawn, keen red face, and his
whole, long-limbed, lank person had an air of breeding
and distinction. And Mrs. Gould relented.

"I only wondered what you felt," she murmured,
gently.

During the last few days, as it happened, Charles
Gould had been kept too busy thinking twice before he
spoke to have paid much attention to the state of his
feelings. But theirs was a successful match, and he
had no drflBculty in finding his answer.

"The best of my feelings are in your keeping, my
dear," he said, lightly; and there was so much truth in
that obscure phrase that he experienced towards her
at the moment a great increase of gratitude and tender-
ness.

Mrs. Gould, however, did not seem to find this answer
in the least obscure. She brightened up delicately;
already he had changed his tone.

"But there are facts. The worth of the mine — sls a
mine — ^is beyond doubt. It shall make us very wealthy.
The mere working of it is a matter of technical knowl-
edge, which I have — which ten thousand other men in
the world have. But its safety, its continued existence
as an enterprise, giving a return to men — ^to strangers,
comparative strangers — who invest money in it, is left
altogether in my hands. I have inspired confidence in
a man of wealth and position. You seem to think this
perfectly natural — do you? Well, I don't know. I
don't know why I have; but it is a fact. This fact
makes everything possible, because without it I would
never have thought of disregarding my father's wishes.
I would never have disposed of the Concessipn as a .
speculator disposes of a valuable right to a company —
for cash and shares, to grow rich eventually if possible,

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but at any rate to put some money at once in his pocket.
No. Even if it had been feasible — ^which I doubt — ^I
would not have done so. Poor father did not imder-
stand. He was afraid I would hang on to the ruinous
thing, waiting for just some such chance, and waste my
life miserably. That was the true sense of his pro-
hibition, which we have deliberately set aside."

They were walking up and down the corredor. Her
head just reached to his shoulder. His arm, ex^tended
downwards, was about her waist. His spurs jingled
slightly.

" He had not seen me for ten years. He did not know
me. He parted from me for my sake, and he would
never let me come back. He was always talking in his
letters of leaving Costaguana, of abandoning everything
and making his escape. But he was too valuable a
prey. They would have thrown him into one of their
prisons at the first suspicion."

His spurred feet clinked slowly. He was bending
over his wife as they walked. The big parrot, turning
its head askew, followed their pacing figures with a
round, unblinking eye.

"He was a lonely man. Ever since I was ten years
old he used to talk to me as if I had been grown up.
When I was in Europe he wrote to me every month.
Ten, twelve pages every month of my life for ten years.
And, after all, he did not know me! Just think of it —
ten whole years away; the years I was growing up into a
man. He could not know me. Do you think he
could?"

Mrs. Gould shook her head negatively; which was just
what her husband had expected from the strength of the
argument. But she shook her head negatively only
because she thought that no one could know her Charles
— really know him for what he was but herself. The

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74 NOSTROMO

thing was obvious. It could be felt. It required no
argument. And poor Mr. Gould, senior, who had died
too soon to ever hear of their engagement, remained too
shadowy a figure for her to be credited with knowledge
of any sort whatever.

"No, he did not understand. In my view this mine
could never have been a thing to sell. Never! After
all his misery I simply could not have touched it for
money alone," Charles Gould pursued: and she pressed
her head to his shoulder approvingly.

These two young people remembered the life which
had ended wretchedly just when their own lives had
come together in that splendour of hopeful love, which
to the most sensible minds appears like a triumph of
good over all the evils of the earth. A vague idea of
rehabilitation had entered the plan of their life. That
it was so vague as to elude the support of argument
<^ade it only the stronger. It had presented itself to
them at the instant when the woman's instinct of de-
votion and the man's instinct of activity receive from
the strongest of illusions their most powerful impulse.
The very prohibition imposed the necessity of success.
It was as if they had been morally bound to make good
their vigorous view of life against the unnatural error of
weariness and despair. If the idea of wealth was
present to them it was only in so far as it was bound with
that other success. Mrs. Gould, an orphan from early
childhood and without fortune, brought up in an
atmosphere of intellectual interests, had never con-
sidered the aspects of great wealth. They were too
remote, and she had not learned that they were de-
sirable. On the other hand, she had not known any-
thing of absolute want. Even the very poverty of her
aunt, the Marchesa, had nothing intolerable to a re-
fined mind; it seemed in accord with a great grief: it had

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 75

the austerity of a sacrifice offered to a noble ideal.
Thus even the most legitimate touch of materialism
was wanting in Mrs. Gould's character. The dead man
of whom she thought with tenderness (because he was
Charley's father) and with some impatience (because he
had been weak), must be put completely in the wrong.
Nothing else would do to keep their prosperity without a
stain on its only real, on its immaterial side!

Charles Gould, on his part, had been obliged to keep
the idea of wealth well to the fore; but he brought it
forward as a means, not as an end. Unless the mine
was good business it could not be touched. He had to
insist on that aspect of the enterprise. It was his lever
to move men who had capital. And Charles Gould be-
lieved in the mine. He knew everything that could be
known of it. His faith in the mine was contagious,
though it was not served by a great eloquence; but busi-
ness men are frequently as sanguine and imaginative
as lovers. They are affected by a personality much
oftener than people would suppose; and Charles Gould,
in his unshaken assurance, was absolutely convincing.
Besides, it was a matter of common knowledge to the
men to whom he addressed himself that mining in
Costaguana was a game that could be made consid-
ably more than worth the candle. The men of affairs
knew that very well. The real diflSculty in touching it
was elsewhere. Against that there was an implication
of calm and implacable resolution in Charles Gould's
very voice. Men of affairs venture sometimes on acts
that the conmion judgment of the, world would pro-
nounce absurd; they make their decisions on apparently
impulsive and human grounds. "Very well," had said
the considerable personage to whom Charles Gould on
his way out through San Francisco had lucidly exposed
his point of view. "Let us suppose that the mining

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76 NOSTROMO

aflFairs of Sulaco are taken in hand. There would
then be in it: first, the house of Hohoyd, which is all
right; then, Mr. Charles Gould, a citizen of Costaguana,
who is also all right; and, lastly, the Government of the
Republic. So far this resembles the first start of the
Macama nitrate fields, where there was a financing
house, a gentleman of the name of Edwards, and — a
Government; or, rather, two Governments — ^two South
American Governments. And you know what came of
it. War came of it; devastating and prolonged war
came of it, Mr. Gould. However, here we possess the
advantage of having only one South American Govern-
ment hanging around for plunder out of the deal. It is
an advantage; but then there are degrees of badness,
and that Government is the Costaguana Government."

Thus spoke the considerable personage, the million-
aire endower of churches on a scale befitting the great-
ness of his native land — ^the same to whom the doctors
used the language of horrid and veiled menaces. He
was a big-limbed, deliberate man, whose quiet burliness
lent to an ample silk-faced frock-coat a superfine
dignity. His hair was iron grey, his eyebrows were
/rftill black, and his massive profile was the profile of a
Csesar's head on an old Roman coin. But his parentage
Was German and Scotch and English, with remote
strains of Danish and French blood, giving him the
temperament of a Puritan and an insatiable imagination
of conquest. He was completely unbending to his
visitor, because of the warm introduction the visitor had
brought from Europe, and because of an irrational
liking for earnestness and determination wherever met,
to whatever end directed.

**The Costaguana Government shall play its hand
for all it's worth — and don't you forget it, Mr. Gould.
Now, what is Costaguana? It is the bottomless pit of

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 77

10 per cent, loans and other fool investments. Euro-
pean capital has been flung into it with both hands for
years. Not ours, though. We in this country know
just about enough to keep indoors when it rains. We
can sit and watch. Of course, some day we shall step
in. We are bound to. But there's no hurry. Time
itself has got to wait on the greatest country in the
whole of God's Universe. We shall be giving the word
for everything: industry, trade, law, journalism, art^
politics, and religion, from Cape Horn clear over to
Smith's Sound, and beyond, too, if anything worth
taking hold of turns up at the North Pole. And then
we shall have the leisure to take in hand the outlying
islands and continents of the earth. We shall run the
world's business whether the world likes it or not. The
world caJrtriidp it — and neither can we, I guess." ]
By this he meant to express his faith in destiny in
words suitable to his intelligence, which was unskilled
in the presentation of general ideas. His intelligence
was nourished on facts; and Charles Gould, whose
imagination had been permanently affected by the one
great fact of a silver mine, had no objection to this
theory of the world's future. If it had seemed dis-
tasteful for a moment it was because the sudden state-
ment of such vast eventualities dwarfed almost to
nothingness the actual matter in hand. He and his
plans and all the mineral wealth of the Occidental
Province appeared suddenly robbed of every vestige
of magnitude. The sensation was disagreeable; but
Charles Gould was not dull. Already he felt that he
was producing a favourable impression; the conscious-
ness of that flattering fact helped him to a vague smile,
which his big interlocutor took lor a smile of discreet
and admiring assent. He smiled quietly, too; and
immediately Charles Gould, with that mental agility

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78 NOSTROMO

mankind will display in defence of a cherished hope,
reflected that the very apparent insignificance of his
aim would help him to success. His personality and his
mine would be taken up because it was a matter of no
great consequence, one way or another, to a man who
referred his action to such a prodigious destiny. And
Charles Gould was not humiliated by this consideration,
because the thing remained as big as ever for him. No-
body else's vast conceptions of destiny could diminish
the aspect of his desire for the redemption of the San
Tom6 mine. In comparison to the correctness of
his aim, definite in space and absolutely attainable
within a limited time, the other man appeared for an
instant as a dreamy idealist of no importance.

The great man, massive and benignant, had been
looking at him thoughtfully; when he broke the short
silence it was to remark that concessions flew about
thick in the air of Costaguana. Any simple soul that
just yearned to be taken in could bring down a con-
cession at the first shot.

"Our consuls get their mouths stopped with them," he
continued, with a twinkle of genial scorn in his eyes.
But in a moment he became grave. "A conscientious,
upright man, that cares nothing for boodle, and keeps
clear of their intrigues, conspiracies, and factions, soon
gets his passports. See that, Mr. Gould? Persona non
grata. That's the reason our Government is never
properly informed. On the other hand, Europe must
be kept out of this continent, and for proper interfer-
ence on our part the time is not yet ripe, I dare say.
But we here — we are not this country's Government,
neither are we simple souls. Your affair is all right.
The main question for us is whether the second partner,
and that's you, is the right sort to hold his own against
the third and unwelcome partner, which is one or

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 79

another of the high and mighty robber gangs that run
the Costaguana Government. What do you think,
Mr. Gould, eh?"

He bent forward to look steadily into the unflinching
eyes of Charles Gould, who, remembering the large box
full of his father's letters, put the accumulated scorn
and bitterness of many years into the tone of his
answer —

"As far as the knowledge of these men and their
methods and their politics is concerned, I can answer
for myself. I have been fed on that sort of knowledge
since I was a boy. I am not likely to fall into mistakes
from excess of optimism."

"Not likely, eh? That's all right. Tact and a stiflF
upper lip is what you'll want; and you could bluff a
little on the strength of your backing. Not too much,
though. We will go with you as long as the thing runs
straight. But we won't be drawn into any large
trouble. This is the experiment which I am willing to
make. There is some risk, and we will take it; but if
you can't keep up your end, we will stand our loss, of
course, and then — we'll let the thing go. This mine
can wait; it has been shut up before, as you know. You
must understand that under no circumstances will we
consent to throw good money after bad."

Thus the great personage had spoken then, in his
own private oflSce, in a great city where other men
(very considerable in the eyes of a vain populace)
waited with alacrity upon a wave of his hand. And
rather more than a year later, during his unexpected
appearance in Sulaco, he had emphasized his uncom-
promising attitude with a freedom of sincerity per-
mitted to his wealth and influence. He did this with
the less reserve, perhaps, because the inspection of
what had been done, and more still the way in which

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80 NOSTROMO

successive steps had been taken, had impressed him
with the conviction that Charles Gould was perfectly
capable of keeping up his end.

'*This young fellow," he thought to himself, "may
yet become a power in the land."

This thought flattered him, for hitherto the only
account of this yoimg man he could give to his intimates
was —

"My brother-in-law met him in one of these one-
horse old German towns, near some mines, and sent
him on to me with a letter. He's one of the Costaguana
Goulds, pure-bred Englishmen, but all born in the
country. His imcle went into politics, was the last
Provincial President of Sulaco, and got shot after a
battle. His father was a prominent business man in
Sta. Marta, tried to keep clear of their politics, and died
ruined after a lot of revolutions. And that's your
Costaguana in a nutshell."

Of course, he was too great a man to be questioned
as to his motives, even by his intimates. The outside
world was at liberty to wonder respectfully at the
hidden meaning of his actions. He was so great a man
that his lavish patronage of the "purer forms of Christi-
anity" (which in its naive form of church-building
amused Mrs. Gould) was looked upon by his fellow-
citizens as the manifestation of a pious and humble
spirit. But in his own circles of the financial world the
taking up of such a thing as the San Tome mine was
regarded with respect, indeed, but rather as a subject
for discreet jocularity. It was a great man's caprice.
In the great Holroyd building (an enormous pile of
iron, glass, and blocks of stone at the comer of two
streets, cobwebbed aloft by the radiation of telegraph
wires) the heads of principal departments exchanged
humorous glances, which meant that they were not let

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 81

into the secrets of the San Tome business. The
Costaguana mail (it was never large — one fairly heavy
envelope) was taken unopened straight into the great
man's room, and no instructions dealing with it had
ever been issued thence. The office whispered that he
answered personally — ^and not by dictation either, but
actually writing in his own hand, with pen and ink,
and, it was to be supposed, taking a copy in his own
private press copy-book, inaccessible to profane eyes.
Some scornful young men, insignificant pieces of minor
machinery in that eleven-storey-high workshop of great
aflFairs, expressed frankly their private opinion that the
great chief had done at last something silly, and was
ashamed of his folly; others, elderly and insignificant,
but full of romantic reverence for the business that had
devoured their best years, used to mutter darkly and
knowingly that this was a portentous sign; that the
Holroyd connection meant by-and-by to get hold of the
whole Republic of Costaguana, lock, stock, and barrel.
But, in fact, the hobby theory was the right one. It
interested the great man to attend personally to the
San Tome mine; it interested him so much that he
allowed this hobby to give a direction to the first com-
plete holiday he had taken for quite a startling number '
of years. He was not running a great enterprise there;
no mere railway board or industrial corporation. He
was numing a man! A success would have pleased him
very much on refreshingly novel grounds; but, on the
other side of the same feeling, it was incumbent upon
him to cast it off utterly at the first sign of failure. A
man may be thrown off. The papers had unfortunately
trumpeted all over the land his journey to Costaguana.
If he was pleased at the way Charles Gould was going
on, he infused an added grinmess into his assurances of
support. Even at the very last interview, half an hour

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82 NOSTROMO

or so before he rolled out of the patio, hat in hand, be-
hind Mrs. Gould's white mules, he had said in Charles's
room —

"You go ahead in your own way, and I shall know
how to help you as long as you hold your own. But you
may rest assured that in a given ease we shall know how
to drop you in time."

To this Charles Gould's only answer had been: "You
may begin sending out the machinery as soon as you
like."

And the great man had liked this imperturbable
assurance. The secret of it was that to Charles
Gould's mind these uncompromising terms were agree-
able. Like this the mine preserved its identity, with
which he had endowed it as a boy; and it remained
dependent on himself alone. It was a serious affair,
and he, too, took it grimly.

"Of course," he said to his wife, alluding to this last
conversation with the departed guest, while they
walked slowly up and down the corredor^ followed by
the irritated eye of the parrot — "of course, a man of
that sort can take up a thing or drop it when he likes.
He will suffer from no sense of defeat. He may have
to give in, or he may have to die to-morrow, but the
great silver and iron interests will survive, and some
day will get hold of Costaguajia along with the rest of
the world."

They had stopped near the cage- The parrot,
catching the sound of a word belonging to his vocabu-
lary, was moved to interfere. Parrots are very human.

"Viva Costaguana!" he shrieked, with intense self-
assertion, and, instantly ruffling up his feathers, as-
sumed an air of puffed-up somnolence behind the
glittering wires.

"And do you believe that, Charley?" Mrs. Gould

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 83

asked. "This seems to me most awful materialism,
and "

*'My dear, it's nothing to me," interrupted her hu»
band, in a reasonable tone. "I make use of what I see.
What's it to me whether his talk is the voice of destiny
or simply a bit of clap-trap eloquence.'^ There's a good
deal of eloquence of one sort or another produced in
both Americas. The air of the New World seems
favourable to the art of declamation. Have you for-
gotten how dear Avellanos can hold forth for hours
here ?"

"Oh, but that's different," protested Mrs. Gould,
almost shocked. The allusion was not to the point,
Don Jose was. a dear good man, who talked very well,
and was enthusiastic about the greatness of the San
Tome mine. "How can you compare them, Charles?"
she exclaimed, reproachfully "He has suffered — and yet
he hopes."

The working competence of men — which she never
questioned — was very surprising to Mrs. Gould, be-
cause upon so many obvious issues they showed them-
selves strangely muddle-headed.

Charles Gould, with a careworn calmness which
secured for him at once his wife's anxious sympathy,
assured her that he was not comparing. He was an
American himself, after all, and perhaps he could under-
stand both kinds of eloquence — "if it were worth while
to try," he added, grimly. But he had breathed the air
of England longer than any of his people had done for
three generations, and really he begged to be excused.
His poor father could be eloquent, too. And he asked
his wife whether she remembered a passage in' one of
his father's last letters where Mr. Gould had ex-
pressed the conviction that "God looked wrathfully
at these countries, or else He would let some ray of hope

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84 NOSTROMO

fall through a rift in the appalling darkness of intrigue,
bloodshed, and crime that hung over the Queen of
Continents."

Mrs. Gould had not forgotten. "You read it to me,
Charley," she murmured. "It was a striking pro-
nouncement. How deeply your father must have felt
its terrible sadness!"

"He did not like to be robbed. It exasperated him,"
said Charles Gould. "But the image will serve well
enough. What is wanted here is law, good faith, order,
security. Any one can declaim about these things, but
I pin my faith to material interests. ,Q nly let the
material interests once get a firm footing, and they^Je
boimd to impose the conditions on which alone they
can continue to exist. That's how your money-mak-
ing is justified here in the face of lawlessness and dis-
order. It is justified because the security which it
demands must be shared with an oppressed people. A
better justice will come afterwards. That's your ray of
hope." His arm pressed her sUght form closer to his
side for a moment. "And who knows whether in that
sense even the San Tome mine may not become that
little rift in the darkness which poor father despaired of
ever seeing?"

She glanced up at him with admiration. He was
competent; he had given a vast shape to the vagueness
of her imselfish ambitions.

"Charley," she said, "you are splendidly diso-
bedient."

He left her suddenly in the corredor to go and get his
hat, a soft, grey sombrero, an article of national cos-
tume which combined unexpectedly well with his
English get-up. He came back, a riding-whip imder
his arm, buttoning up a dogskin glove; his face re-
flected the resolute nature of his thoughts. His wife

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 85

had waited for him at the head of the stairs, and before
he gave her the parting kiss he finished the conversa-
tion—

"What should be perfectly clear to us," he said, "is
the fact that there is no going back. Where could we
begin life afresh? We are in now for all that there is
in us."

He bent over her upturned face very tenderly and a
little remorsefully. Charles Gould was competent
because he had no illusions. The Gould Concession
had to fight for life with such weapons as could be found
at once in the mire of a corruption that was so universal I
as almost to lose its significance. He was prepared to
stoop for his weapons. For a moment he felt as if the
silver mine, which had killed his father, had decoyed
him further than he meant to go; and with the round-
about logic of emotions, he felt that the worthiness of
his life was bound up with success. There was no
going back.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

Mrs. Gould was too intelligently sympathetic not
to share that feeling. It made life exciting, and she
was too much of a woman not to like excitement. But
it frightened her, too, a little; and when Don Jose
Avellanos, rocking in the American chair, would go so
far as to say, "Even, my dear Carlos, if you had failed;
even if some untoward event were yet to destroy your
work — which God forbid! — ^you would have deserved
well of your country," Mrs. Gould would look up from
the tea-table profoundly at her unmoved husband
stirring the spoon in the cup as though he had not heard
a word-
Not that Don Jose anticipated anything of the sort.
He could not praise enough dear Carlos's tact and
courage. His English, rock-like quality of character
was his best safeguard, Don Jose aflSrmed; and, turning
to Mrs. Gould, "As to you, Emilia, my soul" — ^he would
address her with the familiarity of his age and old
friendship — "you are as true a patriot as though you
had been born in our midst."

This might have been less or more than the truth.
Mrs. Gould, accompanying her husband all over the
province in the search for labour, had seen the land
with a deeper glance than a truebom Costaguanera
could have done. In her travel-worn riding habit, her
face powdered white like a plaster cast, with a further
protection of a small silk mask during the heat of the
day, she rode on a well-shaped, light-footed pony in the
centre of a little cavalcade. Two mozos de campOy

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THE SILVER OF THE AONE 87

picturesque in great hats, with spurred bare heels,
in white embroidered calzoneras, leather jackets and
strii>ed pK>nchos, rode ahead with carbines across their
shoulders, swaying in unison to the pace of the horses.
A tropilla of pack mules brought up the rear in charge of
a thin brown muleteer, sitting his long-eared beast very
near the tail, legs thrust far forward, the wide brim of
his hat set far back, making a sort of halo for his head.
An old Costaguana oflScer, a retired senior major of
humble origin, but patronized by the first families on
account of his Blanco ppinions, had been recommended
by Don Jose for commissary and organizer of that
expedition. The pK)ints of his grey moustache hung far
below his chin, and, riding on ]VIrs. Gould's left hand,
he looked about with kindly eyes, pointing out the
features of the country, telling the names of the little
pueblos and of the estates, of the smooth-walled
haciendas like long fortresses crowning the knolls above
the level of the Sulaco Valley. It unrolled itself, with
green yoimg crops, plains, woodland, and gleams of
water, park-like, from the blue vaFK)ur of the distant
sierra to an immense quivering horizon of grass and sky,
where big white clouds seemed to fall slowly into the
darkness of their own shadows.

Men ploughed with wooden ploughs and yoked oxen,
small on a boundless expanse, as if attacking immensity
itself. The moimted figures of vaqueros galloped in
the distance, and the great herds fed with all their
homed heads one way, in one single wavering line as far
as eye could reach across the broad potreros. A spread-
ing cotton-wool tree shaded a thatched ranche by the
road; the trudging files of burdened Indians taking oflF
their hats, would lift sad, mute eyes to the cavalcade
raising the dust of the crumbling camino real made by
the hands of their enslaved forefathers. And Mrs.

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88 NOSTROMO

Gould, with each day's journey, seemed to come nearer
to the soul of the land in the tremendous disclosure
of this interior unaffected by the slight European veneer
of the coast towns, a great land of plain and mountain
and people, suffering and mute, waiting for the future
in a pathetic immobility of patience.

She knew its sights and its hospitality, dispensed^with
a sort of slumbrous dignity in those great houses pre-
senting long, blind walls and heavy portals to the wind-
swept pastures. She was given the head of the tables,
where masters and dependants sat in a simple and
patriarchal state. The ladies of the house would talk
softly in the moonlight imder the orange trees of the
courtyards, impressing upon her the sweetness of their
voices and the something mysterious in the quietude
of their lives. In the morning the gentlemen, well
mounted in braided sombreros and embroidered riding
suits, with much silver on the trappings of their horses,
v/ould ride forth to escort the departing guests before
committing them, with grave good-byes, to the care of
God at the boimdary pillars of their estates. In all
these households she could hear stories of political
outrage; friends, relatives, ruined, imprisoned, killed in
the battles of senseless civil wars, barbarously executed
in ferocious proscriptions, as though the government of
the coimtry had been a struggle of lust between bands
of absurd devils let loose upon the land with sabres and
uniforms and grandiloquent phrases. And on all the
lips she foimd a weary desire for peace, the dread of
officialdom with its nightmarish parody of administra-
tion without law, without security, and without justice.

She bore a whole two months of wandering very well;
she had that power of resistance to fatigue which one
discovers here and there in some quite frail-looking
women with surprise — ^like a state of possession by a

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 89

remarkably stubborn spirit. Don Pep€ — ^the old Costa-
guana major — after much display of solicitude for the
delicate lady, had ended by conferring upon her the
name of the "Never-tired Sefiora." Mrs. Gould was
indeed becoming a Costaguanera. Having acquired
in Southern Europe a knowledge of true peasantry, she
was able to appreciate the great worth of the people. She
saw the man imder the silent, sad-eyed beast of burden.
She saw them on the road carrying loads, lonely figures
upon the plain, toiling under great straw hats, with
their white clothing flapping about their limbs in the
wind; she remembered the villages by some group of
Indian women at the fountain impressed upon her
memory, by the face of some young Indian girl with a
melancholy and sensual profile, raising an earthenware
vessel of cool water at the door of a dark hut tfith a
wooden porch cumbered with great brown jars. The
solid wooden wheels of an ox-cart, halted with its shafts
in the dust, showed the strokes of the axe; and a party
of charcoal carriers, with each man's load resting above
his head on the top of the low mud wall, slept stretched
in a row within the strip of shade.

The heavy stonework of bridges and churches left
by the conquerors proclaimed the disregard of human
labour, the tribute-labour of vanished nations. The
power of king and church was gone, but at the sight of
some heavy ruinous pile overtopping from a knoll the
low mud walls of a village, Don Pepe would interrupt
the tale of his campaigns to exclaim —

"Poor Costaguana! Before, it was everything for
the Padres, nothing for the people; and now it is every-
thing for those great pohticos in Sta. Marta, for negroes
and thieves."

Charles talked with the alcaldes, with the fiscales,
with the principal people in towns, and with the

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90 NOSTROMO

caballeros on the estates. The commandantes of the
districts offered him escorts — ^for he could show an
authorization from the Sulaco political chief of the day.
How much the document had cost him in gold twenty-
dollar pieces was a secret between himself, a great man
in the United States (who condescended to answer the
Sulaco mail with his own hand), and a great man of
another sort, with a dark olive complexion and shifty
eyes, inhabiting then the Palace of the Intendencia in
Sulaco, and who piqued himself on his culture and
Europeanism generally in a rather French style be-
cause he had lived in Europe for some years — in exile,
he said. However, it was pretty well known that just
before this exile he had incautiously gambled away all
the cash in the Custom House of a small port where a
friend in power had procured for him the post of sub-
collector. That youthful indiscretion had, amongst
other inconveniences, obliged him to earn his living
for a time as a caf6 waiter in Madrid; but his talents
must have been great, after all, since they had enabled
him to retrieve his political fortimes so splendidly.
Charles Gould, exposing his business with an imperturb-
able steadiness, called him Excellency.

The provincial Excellency assumed a weary su-
periority, tilting his chair far back near an open window
in the true Costaguana manner. The military band
happened to be braying operatic selections on the plaza
just then, and twice he raised his hand imperatively for
silence in order to listen to a favourite passage.

" Exquisite, delicious!" he murmured; while Charles
Gould waited, standing by with inscrutable patience.
"Lucia, Lucia di Lammermoor! I am passionate foi
music. It transports me. Ha! the divine — ^ha! —
Mozart. Si! divine . . . What is it you were
saying?"

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 91

Of course, rumours had reached him already of the
newcomer's intentions. Besides, he had received an
official warning from Sta. Marta. His manner was
intended simply to conceal his curiosity and impress
his visitor. But after he had locked up something
valuable in the drawer of a large writing-desk in a dis-
tant part of the room, he became very affable, and
walked back to his chair smartly.

"If you intend to build villages and assemble a
population near the mine, you shall require a decree
of the Minister of the Interior for that," he suggested
in a business-like manner.

"I have already sent a memorial," said Charles
Gould, steadily, "and I reckon now confidently upon
your Excellency's favourable conclusions."

The Excellency was a man of many moods. With
the receipt of the money a great mellowness had de-
scended upon his simple soul. Unexpectedly he fetched
a deep sigh.

"Ah, Don Carlos! What we want is advanced men
like you in the province. The lethargy — the lethargy
of these aristocrats! The want of public spirit! The
absence of all enterprise! I, with my profoimd studies
in Europe, you understand "

With one hand thrust into his swelling bosom, he
rose and fell on his toes, and for ten minutes, almost
without drawing breath, went on hurling himself
intellectually to the assault of Charles Gould's polita
silence; and when, stopping abruptly, he fell back into
his chair, it was as though he had been beaten off from
a fortress. To save his dignity he hastened to dismiss
this silent man with a solemn inclination of the head
and the words, pronoimced with moody, fatigued con-
descension —

"You may depend upon my enlightened goodwill

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92 NOSTROMO

as long as your conduct as a good citizen deserves
it."

He took up a paper fan and began to cool himself with
a consequential air, while Charles Gould bowed and
withdrew. Then he dropped the fan at once, and
stared with an appearance of wonder and perplexity at
the closed door for quite a long time. At last he
shrugged his shoulders as if to assure himself of his dis-
dain. Cold, dull. No intellectuality. Red hair. A
true Englishman. He despised him.

His face darkened. What meant this unimpressed
and frigid behaviour? He was the first of the suc-
cessive politicians sent out from the capital to rule the
Occidental Province whom the manner of Charles
Gould in oflScial intercourse was to strike as offensively
independent.

Charles Gould assumed that if the appearance of
listening to deplorable balderdash must form part of the
price he had to pay for being left unmolested, the obliga-
tion of uttering balderdash personally was by no means
included in the bargain. He drew the line there. To
these provincial autocrats, before whom the peaceable
population of all classes had been accustomed to
tremble, the reserve of that English-looking engineer
caused an uneasiness which swung to and fro between
cringing and truculence. Gradually all of them dis-
covered that, no matter what party was in power, that
man remained in most effective touch with the higher
authorities in Sta. Marta.

This was a fact, and it accounted perfectly for the
Goulds being by no means so wealthy as the engineer-in-
chief on the new railway could legitimately suppose.
Following the advice of Don Jose Avellanos, who was a
man of good coimsel (though rendered timid by his
horrible experiences of Guzman Bento's time), Charles

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 93

Gould had kept dear of the capital; but in the current
gossip of the foreign residents there he was known
(with a good deal of seriousness underlying the irony)
by the nickname of "King of Sulaco." An advocate of
the Costaguana Bar, a man of reputed ability and good
character, member of the distinguished Moraga family
possessing extensive estates in the Sulaco Valley, was
pointed out to strangers, with a shade of mystery and
respect, as the agent of the San Tom6 mine — "political,
you know." He was tall, black-whiskered, and dis-
creet. It was known that he had easy access to minis-
ters, and that the numerous Costaguana generals were
always anxious to dine at his house. Presidents
granted him audience with facility. He corresponded
actively with his maternal imde, Don Jos6 Avellanos;
but his letters — imless those expressing formally his
dutiful affection — ^were seldom entrusted to the Costa-
guana Post OflBce. There the envelopes are opened,
indiscriminately, with the frankness of a brazen and
childish impudence characteristic of some Spanish-
American Governments. But it must be noted that at
about the time of the re-opening of the San Tom6 mine
the muleteer who had been employed by Charles Gould
in his prelimiaary travels on the Campo added his small
train of animals to the thin stream of traffic carried
over the moimtain passes between the Sta. Marta up-
land and the Valley of Sulaco. There are no travellers
by that arduous and unsafe route imless under very
exceptional circumstances, and the state of inland
trade did not visibly require additional transport
facilities; but the man seemed to find his account in it.
A few packages were always f oimd for him whenever he
took the road. Very brown and wooden, in goatskin
breeches with the hair outside, he sat near the tail of
his own smart mule, his great hat turned against the

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94 NOSTROMO

sun, an expression of blissful vacancy on his long face,
humming day after day a love-song in a plaintive key,
or, without a change of expression, letting out a yell at
his small tropilla in front. A roimd little guitar hung
high up on his back; and there was a place scooped out
artistically in the wood of one of his pack-saddles where
a tightly rolled piece of paper could be slipped in, the
wooden plug replaced, and the coarse canvas nailed on
again. - When in Sulaco it was his practice to smoke and
doze all day long (as though he had no care in the world)
on a stone bench outside the doorway of the Casa
Gould and facing the windows of the Avellanos house.
Years and years ago his mother had been chief laundry-
woman in that family — very accomplished in the mat-
ter of clear-starching. He himself had been bom on
one of their haciendas. His mame was Bonifacio, and
Don Jose, crossing the street about five o'clock to call on
Dofia Emilia, always acknowledged his humble salute
by some movement of hand or head. The porters of
both houses conversed lazily with him in tones of grave
intimacy. His evenings he devoted to gambling and
to calls in a spirit of generous festivity upon the peyne
(Toro girls in the more remote side-streets of the town.
But he, too, was a discreet man.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Those of us whom business or curiosity took to
Sulaco in these years before the first advent of the rail-
way can remember the steadying effect of the San
Tome mine upon the life of that remote province. The
outward appearances had not changed then as they
have changed since, as I am told, with cable cars
nmning along the streets of the Constitution, and
carriage roads far into the country, to Rincon and other
viUages, where the foreign merchants and the Ricos
generally have their modem villas, and a vast railway
goods yard by the harbour, which has a quay-side, a
long range of warehouses, and quite serious, organized
labour troubles of its own.

Nobody had ever heard of l^^bour troubles then. The
Cargadores of the port formed, indeed, an unruly
brotherhood of all sorts of scum, with a patron saint
of their own. They went on strike regularly (every
bull-fight day), a form of trouble that even Nostromo
at the height of his prestige could never cope with
eflSciently; but the morning after each fiesta, before the
Indian market-women had opened their mat parasols
on the plaza, when the snows of Higuerota gleamed
pale over the town on a yet black sky, the appearance
of a phantom-like horseman mounted on a silver-grey
mare solved the problem of labour without fail. His
steed paced the lanes of the slums and the weed-grown
enclosures within the old ramparts, between the black,
lightless cluster of huts, lik^ cow-byres, like dog-
kfiunels. The horseman hammered with the butt pf ^

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96 NOSTROMO

heavy revolver at the doors of low pulperias, of ob-
scene lean-to sheds slopmg against the tumble-down
piece of a noble wall, at the wooden sides of dwellings so
flimsy that the sound of snores and sleepy mutters
within could be heard in the pauses of the thimdering
clatter of his blows. He called out men's names
menacingly from the saddle, once, twice. The drowsy
answers — ^grumpy, conciliating, savage, jocular, or
deprecating — came out into the silent darkness in which
the horseman sat still, and presently a dark figure would
flit out coughing in the still air. Sometimes a low-
toned woman cried through the window-hole softly,
**He's coming directly, sefior," and the horseman waited
silent on a motionless horse. But if perchance he had
to dismoimt, then, after a while, from the door of that
hovel or of that pulperia, with a ferocious scuffle and
stifled imprecations, a cargador would fly out head
first and hands abroad, to sprawl xmder the forelegs of
the silver-grey mare, who only pricked forward her
sharp little ears. She was used to that work; and the
man, picking himself up, would walk away hastily from
Nostromo's revolver, reeling a little along the street
and snarling low curses. At sunrise Captain Mitchell,
coming out anxiously in his night attire on to the
wooden balcony running the whole length of the O.S.N.
Company's lonely building by the shore, would see
the lighters already imder way, figures moving busily
about the cargo cranes, perhaps hear the invaluable
Nostromo, now dismounted and in the checked shirt
and red sash of a Mediterranean sailor, bawling orders
from the end of the jetty in a stentorian voice. A
fellow in a thousand!

The material apparatus of perfected civilization
which obliterates the individuality of old towns under
the stereotyped conveniences of modem life had not

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intruded as yet; but over the worn-out antiquity of
Sulaco, so characteristic with its stuccoed houses and
barred windows, with the great yellowy-white walls of
abandoned convents behind the rows of sombre green
cypresses, that fact — very modem in its spirit — the
San Tome mine had already thrown its subtle influence.
It had altered, too, the outward character of the
crowds on feast days on the plaza before the open portal
of the cathedral, by the number of white pK>nchos with a
green stripe affected as holiday wear by the San Tom6
miners. They had also adopted white hats with green
cord and braid — ^articles of good quaUty, which could
be obtained in the storehouse of the administration for
very little money. A peaceable Cholo wearing these
colours (unusual in Costaguana) was somehow very
seldom beaten to within an inch of his life on a charge of
disrespect to the town police; neither ran he much risk
of being suddenly lassoed on the road by a recruiting
party of lanceros — a method of voluntary enlistment
looked upon as almost legal in the Republic. Whole
villages were known to have volunteered for the army
in that way; but, as Don Pepe would say with a hope-
less shrug to Mrs. Gould, "What would you! Poor
people ! Pobrecitos ! Pobrecitos ! But the State must
have its soldiers."

Thus professionally spoke Don P6p6, the fighter, with
pendent moustaches, a nut-brown, lean face, and a
clean run of a cast-iron jaw, suggesting the type of a
cattle-herd horseman from the great Llanos of the
South. "If you will listen to an old oflScer of Paez,
sefiores," was the exordium of all his speeches in the
Aristocratic Club of Sulaco, where he was admitted on
account of his past services to the extinct cause of
Federation. The club, dating from the days of the
proclamation of Costaguana's independence, boasted

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98 NOSTROMO

many names of liberators amongst its first fomiders.
Suppressed arbitrarily innumerable times by various
Governments, with memories of proscriptions and of at
least one wholesale massacre of its members, sadly
assembled for a banquet by the order of a zealous
military commandante (their bodies were afterwards
stripped naked and flimg into the plaza out of the win-
dows by the lowest scum of the populace), it was again
flourishing, at that period, peacefully. It extended to
strangers the large hospitality of the cool, big rooms of
its historic quarters in the front part of a house, once the
residence of a high oflScial of the Holy Office. The two
wings, shut up, crumbled behind the nailed doors, and
what may be described as a grove of young orange trees
grown in the impaved patio concealed the utter ruin of
the back part facing the gate. You turned in from the
street, as if entering a secluded orchard, where you came
upon the foot of a disjointed staircase, guarded by a
moss-stained effigy of some saintly bishop, mitred and
staffed, and bearing the indignity of a broken nose
meekly, with his fine stone hands crossed on his breast.
The chocolate-coloured faces of servants with mops of
black hair peeped at you from above; the click of
billiard balls came to your ears, and ascending the
steps, you would perhaps see in the first sala, very stiflF
upon a straight-backed chair, in a good light, Don Pepe
moving his long moustaches as he spelt his way, at ann*s
length, through an old Sta. Marta newspaper. His
horse — a stony-hearted but per'severing black bpute
with a hammer head — ^you would have seen in the
street dozing motionless under an inmiense saddle, with
its nose almost touching the curbstone of the sidewalk.
Don P6pe, when "down from the mountain," as the
phrase, often heard in Sulaco, went, could also be seen
in the drawing-room of the Casa Gould. He sat with

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modest assurance at some distance from the tea-table.
With his knees close together, and a kindly twinkle of
drollery in his deep-set eyes, he would throw his small
and ironic pleasantries into the current of conversation.
There was in that man a sort of sane, humorous shrewd-
ness, and a vein of genuine humanity so often found in"
simple old soldiers of proved courage who have seen
much desperate service. Of course he knew nothing
whatever of mining, but his employment was of a sp^ial
kind. He was in charge of the whole population in the
territory of the mine, which extended from the head of
the gorge to where the cart track from the foot of the
mountain enters the plain, crossing a stream over a
little wooden bridge painted green — ^green, the colour of -^
hope, being also the colour of the mine.*^

It was reported in Sulaco that up there "at the moim-
tain" Don Pepe walked about precipitous paths, girt
with a great sword and in a shabby unijform with
tarnished bullion epaulettes of a senior major. Most
miners being Indians, with big wild eyes, addressed him
as Taita (father), as these barefooted people of Costa-
guana will address anybody who wears shoes; but it was
Basilio, Mr. Gould's own mozo and the head servant of
the Casa, who, in all good faith and from a sense of
propriety, announced him once in the solemn words,
"El Senor Gobemador has arrived."

Don Jose Avellanos, then in the drawing-room, was
delighted beyond measure at the aptness of the title,
with which he greeted the old major banteringly as
soon as the latter's soldierly figure appeared in the door-
way. Don Pepe only smiled in his long moustaches, as
much as to say, "You might have found a worse name
for an old soldier."*

And El Senor Gobemador he had renvained, with his
small jokes upon his function and upon his domain.

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100 NOSTROMO

where he aflSrmed with humorous exaggeration to Mrs.
Gould—

"No two stones could come together anywhere with-
out the Gobemador hearing the click, seflora."

And he would tap his ear with the tip of his forefinger
knowingly. Even when the number of the miners alone
rose to over six hundred he seemed to know each of them
individually, all the innumerable Jos6s, Manuels,
Ignacios, from the villages primero — segundo — or
tercero (there were three mining villages) under his
government. He could distinguish them not only by
their flat, joyless faces, which to Mrs. Gould looked all
alike, as if run into the same ancestral mould of suflFer-
ing and patience, but apparently also by the infinitely
graduated shades of reddish-brown, of blackish-brown,
of coppery-brown backs, as the two shifts, stripped to
linen drawers and leather skull-caps, mingled together
with a confusion of naked limbs, of shouldered picks,
swinging lamps, in a great shuffle of sandalled feet on
the open plateau before the entrance of the main
tunnel. It was a time of pause. The Indian boys
leaned idly against the long line of little cradle wagons
standing empty; the screeners and ore-breakers squat-
ted on their heels smoking long cigars; the great wooden
shoots slanting over the edge of the tunnel plateau were
silent; and only the ceaseless, violent rush of water in
the open flumes could be heard, murmuring fiercely,
with the splash and rumble of revolving turbine-
wheels, and the thudding march of the stamps pound-
ing to powder the treasure rock on the plateau below.
The heads of gangs, distinguished by brass medals
hanging on their bare breasts, marshalled their squads;
and at last the mountain would swallow one-half of the
silent crowd, while the other half would move oflF in long
files down the zigzag paths leading to the bottom of the

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gorge. It was deep; and, far below, a thread of vegeta-
tion winding between the blazing rock faces resembled
a slender green cord, in which three lumpy knots of
banana patches, palm-leaf roots, and shady trees
marked the Village One, Village Two, Village Three,
housing the miners of the Gould Concession.

Whole families had been moving from the first
towards the spK)t in the Higuerota range, whence the
rumoiu' of work and safety had spread over the pastoral
CampK), forcing its way also, even as the waters of a high
flood, into the nooks and crannies of the distant blue
walls of the Sierras. Father first, in a pointed straw
hat, then the mother with the bigger children, generally
also a diminutive donkey, all under burdens, except the
leader himself, or perhaps some grown girl, the pride of
the family, stepping barefooted and straight as an
arrow, with braids of raven hair, a thick, haughty pro-
file, and no load to carry but the small guitar of the
country and a pair of soft leather sandals tied together
on her back. At the sight of such parties strung but on
the cross trails between the pastures, or camped by the
side of the royal road, travellers on horseback would
remark to each other —

"More people going to the San Tome mine. We
shall see others to-morrow."

And spurring on in the dusk they would discuss the
great news of the province, the news of the San Tom6
mine. A rich Englishman was going to work it — and
perhaps not an Englishman, Quien sabe I A foreigner
with much money. Oh, yes, it had begun. A party of
men who had been to Sulaco with a herd of black bulls
for the next corrida had reported that from the porch
of the posada in Rincon, only a short league from the
town, the lights on the mountain were visible, twinkling
above the trees. And there was a woman seen riding

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102 NOSTROMO

a horse sideways, not in the chah* seat, but upon a sort
of saddle, and a man's hat on her head. She walked
about, too, on foot up the mountain paths. A woman
engineer, it seemed she was.

"What an absurdity! Impossible, senor!"
" Sil Sil Una Americana del Norte.^*
"Ah, well ! if your worship is informed. Una Ameri-
cana; it need be something of that sort."

And they would laugh a little with astonishment and
scorn, keeping a wary eye on the shadows of the road,
for one is liable to meet bad men when travelling late on
the Campo.

And it was not only the men that Don Pepe knew so
well, but he seemed able, with one attentive, thoughtful
glance, to classify each woman, girl, or growing youth
of his domain. It was only the small fry that puzzled
him sometimes. He and the padre could be seen
frequently side by side, meditative and gazing across the
street of a village at a lot of sedate brown children, try-
ing to sort them out, as it were, in low, consulting tones,
or else they would together put searching questions as
to the parentage of some small, staid urchin met
wandering, naked and grave, along the road with a
cigar in his baby mouth, and perhaps his mother's
rosary, purloined for purposes of ornamentation, hang-
ing in a loop of beads low down on his rotund little
stomach. The spiritual and temporal pastors of the
mine flock were Very good friends. With Dr. Monyg-
ham, the medical pastor, who had accepted the charge
from Mrs. Gould, and lived in the hospital building,
they were on not so intimate terms. But no one could
be on intimate terms with El Senor Doctor, who, with
his twisted shoulders, drooping head, sardonic mouth,
and side-long bitter glance, was mysterious and un-
canny. The other two authorities worked in har-

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mony. Father Roman, dried-up, small, alert, wrinkled,
with big round eyes, a sharp diin, and a great snuff-
taJcer, was an old campaigner, too; he had shriven
many simple souls on the battlefields of the Republic,
kneeling by the dying on hillsides, in the long grass,
in the gloom of the forests, to hear the last confession
with the smell of gunpowder smoke in his nostrils, the
rattle of muskets, the hum and spatter of bullets in his
ears. And where was the harm if, at the presbytery,
they had a game with a pack of greasy cards in the
early evening, before Don Pepe went his last rounds to
see that all the watchmen of the mine — a body or-
ganized by himself — were at their posts? For that last
duty before he slept Don Pepe did actually gird his old
sword on the verandah of an unmistakable American
white frame house, which Father Roman called the
presbytery. Near by, a long, low, dark building,
steeple-roofed, like a vast barn with a wooden cross
over the gable, was the miners' chapel. There Father
Roman said Mass every day before a sombre altar-
piece representing the Resurrection, the grey slab of the
tombstone balanced on one corner, a figure soaring up-
wards, long-limbed and livid, in an oval of pallid light,
and a helmeted brown legionary smitten down, right
across the bituminous foreground. "This picture, my
children, muy linda e maravillosay^ Father Roman would
say to some of hi^£ock^-!lwhich you behold here through
the munificence of the wife of our Senor Administrador,
has been painted in Europe, a country of saints and
miracles, and much greater than our Costaguana."
And he would take a pinch of snuff with unction. But
when once an inquisitive spirit desired to know in what
direction this Europe was situated, whether up or down
the coast. Father Roman, to conceal his perplexity, be-
came very reserved and severe. "No doubt it is

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104 NOSTROMO

extremely far away. But ignorant sinners like you of
the San Tome mine should think earnestly of ever-
lasting punishment instead of inquiring into the
magnitude of the earth, with its countries and popula-
tions altogether beyond your imderstanding."

With a "Good-night, Padre," "Good-night, Don
Pepe," the Gobemador would go off, holding up his
sabre against his side, his body bent forward, with a
long, plodding stride in the dark. The jocularity
proper to an innocent card game for a few cigars or a
bundle of yerba was replaced at once by the stem duty
mood of an oflScer setting out to visit the outposts of an
encamped army. One loud blast of the whistle that
hung from his neck provoked instantly a great shrilling
of responding whistles, mingled with the barking of
dogs, that would calm down slowly at last, away up at
the head of the gorge; and in the stillness two serenos,
on guard by the bridge, would appear walking noise-
lessly towards him. On one side of the road a long
frame building — ^the store — ^would be closed and barri-
caded from end to end; facing it another white frame
house, still longer, and with a verandah — the hospital —
would have lights in the two windows of Dr. Monyg-
ham's quarters. Even the delicate foliage of a clump of
pepper trees did not stir, so breathless would be the
darkness warmed by the radiation of the over-heated
rocks. Don Pepe would stand still for a moment with
the two motionless serenos before him, and, abruptly,
high up on the sheer face of the mountain, dotted with
single torches, like drops of fire fallen from the two great
blazing clusters of lights above, the ore shoots would
begin to rattle. The great clattering, shuflBiing noise,
gathering speed and weight, would be caught up by the
walls of the gorge, and sent upon the plain in a growl of
thimder. The pasadero in Rincon swore that on calm

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nights, by listening intently, he could catch the sound
in his doorway as of a storm in the mountains.

To Charles Gould's fancy it seemed that the sound
must reach the uttermost limits of the province. Rid-
ing at night towards the mine, it would meet him at the
edge of a little wood just beyond Rincon. There was
no mistaking the growling mutter of the mountain
pouring its stream of treasure under the stamps; and it
came to his heart with the peculiar force of a procla-/
mation thundered forth over the land and the marvel-
lousness of an accomplished fact fulfilling an audacious
desire. He had heard this very soimd in his imagin-
ation on that far-oflF evening when his wife and him-
self, after a tortuous ride through a strip of forest,
had reined in their horses near the stream, and had
gazed for the first time upon the jimgle-grown soli-
tude of the gorge. The head of a palm rose here
and there. In a high ravine round the comer of the
San Tome mountain (which is square like a block-
house) the thread of a slender waterfall flashed bright
and glassy through the dark green of the heavy fronds
of tree-ferns. Don Pepe, in attendance, rode up,
and, stretching his arm up the gorge, had declared
with mock solemnity, "Behold the very paradise of
snakes, seflora."

And then they had wheeled their horses and ridden
back to sleep that night at Rincon. The alcalde — an
old, skinny Moreno, a sergeant of Guzman Bento's
time — ^had cleared respectfully out of his house with his
three pretty daughters, to make room for the foreign
iseiiora and their worships the Caballeros. All he asked
Charles Goidd (whom he took for a mysterious and
official person) to do for him was to remind the supreme
Government — El Gobierno supremo — of a pension
(amounting to about a dollar a month) to which he

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106 NOSTROMO

believed himself entitled. It had been promised to
him, he affirmed, straightening his bent back martially,
"many years ago, for my valour in the wars with the
wild Indios when a young man, senor."

The waterfall existed no longer. The tree-ferns that
had luxuriated in its spray had died around the dried-
up pool, and the high ravine was only a big trench half
filled up with the refuse of excavations and tailings.
The torrent, dammed up above, sent its water rushing
along the open flumes of scooped tree trunks striding on
trestle-legs to the turbines working the stamps on the
lower plateau — ^the mesa grande of the San Tome
mountain. Only the memory of the waterfall, with its
amazing fernery, like a hanging garden above the rocks
of the gorge, was preserved in Mrs. Gould's water-
I colour sketch; she had made it hastily one day from a
cleared patch in the bushes, sitting in the shade of a
roof of straw erected for her on three rough poles under
Don Pepe's direction.

Mrs. Gould had seen it all from the beginning: the
clearing of the wilderness, the making of the road, the
cutting of new paths up the cliff face of San Tome. For
weeks together she had lived on the spot with her hus-
band; and she was so little in Sulaco during that year
that the appearance of the Gould carriage on the
Alameda would cause a social excitement. From the
heavy family coaches full of stately senoras and black-
eyed senoritas rolling solemnly in the shaded alley white
hands were waved towards her with animation in a
flutter of greetings. Dona Emilia was "down from the
mountain.^'

But not for long. Dona Emilia would be gone " up to
the mountain" in a day or two, and her sleek carriage
mules would have an easy time of it for another long
spell. She had watched the erection of the first frame-

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house put up on the lower mesa for an oflSce and Den
Pepe's quarters; she heard with a thrill of thankful
emotion the first wagon load of ore rattle down the then
only shoot; she had stood by her husband's side per-
fectly silent, and gone cold all over with excitement at
the instant when the first battery of only fifteen stamps
was put in motion for the first time. On the occasion
when the fires imder the first set of retorts in their shed
had glowed far into the night she did not retire to rest
on the rough cadre set up for her in the as yet bare
frame-house till she had seen the first spongy lump oty
silver yielded to the hazards of the world by the dark
depths of the Gould Concession; she had laid her un-
mercenary hands, with, an eagerness that made them
tremble, upon the first silver ingot turned out still warm
from the mould; and by her imaginative estimate of its
power she endowed that lump of metal with a justifi-
cative conception, as though it were not a mere fact,
but something far-reaching and impalpable, like the '\
true expression of an emotion or the emergence of a
principle.

Don Pepe, extremely interested, too, looked over her
shoulder with a smile that, making longitudinal folds
on his face, caused it to resemble a leathern mask with a
benignantly diabolic expression.

"Would not the muchachos of Hernandez like to get
hold of this insignificant object, that looks, por Dios,
very much like a piece of tin?" he remarked, jocularly.

Hernandez, the robber, had been an inoffensive, small
ranchero, kidnapped with circumstances of peculiar
atrocity from his home during one of the civil wars, and
forced to serve in the army. There his conduct as
soldier was exemplary, till, watching his chance, he
killed his colonel, and managed to get clear away. With
a band of deserters, who chose him for their chief, he had

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108 NOSTROMO

taken refuge beyond the wild and waterless Bolson de
Tonoro. The haciendas paid him blackmail in cattle
and horses; extraordinary stories were told of his powers
and of his wonderful escapes from capture. He used
to ride, single-handed, into the villages and the little
towns on the Campo, driving a pack mule before him,
with two revolvers in his belt, go straight to the shop or
store, select what he wanted, and ride away unopposed
because of the terror his exploits and his audacity in-
spired. Poor country people he usually left alone; the
upper class were often stopped on the roads and robbed;
but any imlucky official that fell into his hands was sure
to get a severe flogging. The army officers did not like
his name to be mentioned in their presence. His
followers, mounted on stolen horses, laughed at the pur-
suit of the regular cavalry sent to hunt them down, and
whom they took pleasure to ambush most scientifically
in the broken ground of their own fastness. Expedi-
tions had been fitted out; a price had been put upon his
head; even attempts had been made, treacherously of
course, to open negotiations with him, without in the
slightest way affecting the even tenor of his career. At
last, in true Costaguana fashion, the Fiscal of Tonoro,
who was ambitious of the glory of having reduced the
famous Hernandez, offered him a sum of money and a
v^ safe conduct out of the country for the betrayal of his
j.1 band. But Hernandez evidently was not of the stuff
^ V of which the distinguished military politicians and
^^ ^conspirators of Costaguana are made. This clever but
common device (which frequently works like a charm
in putting down revolutions) failed with the chief of
vulgar Salteadores. It promised well for the Fiscal at
first, but ended very badly for the squadron of lanceros
posted (by the FiscaFs directions) in a fold of the groimd
into which Hernandez had promised to lead his un-

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 109

suspecting followers They came, indeed, at the ap-
pointed time, but creeping on their hands and knees
through the bush, and only let their presence be known
by a general discharge of firearms, which emptied
many saddles. The troopers who escaped came riding
very hard into Tonoro. It is said that their commanding
oflScer (who, being better mounted, rode far ahead of the
rest) afterwards got into a state of despairing in-
toxication and beat the ambitious Fiscal severely with
the flat of his sabre in the presence of his wife and
daughters, for bringing this disgrace upon the National
Army. The highest civil oflScial of Tonoro, falling to
the groimd in a swoon, was further kicked all over the
body and rowelled with sharp spurs about the neck and
face because of the great sensitiveness of his military
colleague. This gossip of the inland Campo, so
characteristic of the rulers of the coimtry with its
story of oppression, ineflSciency, fatuous methods, \
treachery, and savage brutality, was perfectly known * '
to Mrs. Gould. That it should be accepted with no
indignant comment by people of intelligence, refinement,
and character as something inherent in the natiu'e of t^
things was one of the symptoms of degradation that had
the power to exasperate her almost to the verge of %
despair. Still looking at the ingot of silver, she shook < *
her head at Don Pepe's remark —

"If it had not been for the lawless tyranny of your
Government, Don Pepe, many an outlaw now with
Hernandez would be living peaceably and happy by the
honest work of his hands."

"Sefiora," cried Don Pepe, with enthusiasm, "it is
true ! It is as if God had given you the power to look
into the very breasts of people. You have seen them
working round you. Dona Emiha — meek as lambs,
patient like their own burros, brave like lions. 1 have

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110 NOSTROMO

led them to the very muzzles of guns — I, who stand
here before you, sefiora — ^in the time of Paez, who was
full of generosity, and in courage only approached by
the uncle of Don Carlos here, as far as I know. No
wonder there are bandits in the Campo when there are
none but thieves, swindlers, and sanguinary macaques
to rule us in Sta. Marta. However, all the same, a
bandit is a bandit, and we shall have a dozen good
straight Winchesters to ride with the silver down to
Sulaco."

Mrs. Gould^s ride with the first silver escort to Sulaco
was the closing episode of what she called "my camp
life" before she had settled in her town-house per-
manently, as was proper and even necessary for the wife
of the administrator of such an important institution as
the San Tome mine. For the San Tome mine was to
become an institution, a rallying point for everything
in the province that needed order and stability to live.
Security seemed to flow upon this land from the
mountain-gorge. The authorities of Sulaco had learned
that the San Tome mine could make it worth their while
to leave things and people alone. This was the nearest
approach to the rule of common-sense and justice
Charles Gould felt it possible to secure at first. In fact,
the mine, with its organization, its population growing
fiercely attached to their position of privileged safety,
with its armoury, with its Don Pepe, with its armed
body of serenos (where, it was said, many an outlaw and
deserter — and even some members of Hernandez's
band — had found a place), the mine was a power in the
land. As a certain prominent man in Sta. Marta had
exclaimed with a hollow laugh, once, when discussing
the line of action taken by the Sulaco authorities at a.
time of political crisis —

"Yqu call these men Government oflScials? Thev?

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 11 1

Never! They are officials of the mine — officials of the
Concession — ^I tell you."

The prominent man (who was then a person in power,
with a lemon-coloured face and a very short and ciu'ly,
not to say woolly, head of hair) went so far in his
temporary discontent as to shake his yellow fist under
the nose of his interlocutor, and shriek —

"Yes! All! Silence! All! Itell^u! Th^jjolitieal
Jef e, the chief of thepdtee^TtEeSu^^ tl M^oual ^ ^-^^

general, alT, all, are the officials of that Gould." ^

Thereupon an intfejmhinrtiorTr-and argumentative
murmur would flow on for a space in the ministerial
cabinet, and the prominent man's passion would end
in a cynical shrug of the shoulders. After ail, he seemed
to say, what did it matter as long as the minister himself
was not forgotten during his brief day of authority?
But all the same, the imofficial agent of the San Tome
mine, working for a good cause, had his moments of
anxiety, which were reflected in his letters to Don Jose
Avellanos, his maternal imcle.

"No sanguinary macaque from Sta. Marta shall set
foot on that part of Costaguana which lies beyond the
San Tome bridge," Don Pepe used to assure Mrs.
Gould. "Except, of coiu'se, as an honoured guest —
for our Senor Administrador is a deep politico." But
to Charles Gould, in his own room, the old Major would
remark with a grim and soldierly cheeriness, "We are
all playing our heads at this game."

Don Jose Avellanos would mutter "Imperium in
imperio, Emilia, my soul," with an air of profoimd self-
satisfaction which, somehow, in a curious way, seemed
to contain a queer admixture of bodily discomfort.
But that, perhaps, could only be visible to the initiated.

And for the initiated it was a wonderful place, this
drawing-room of the Casa Gould, with its momentary

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112 NOSTROMO

glimpses of the master — ^El Senor Administrador^-
older, harder, mysteriously silent, with the lines
deepened on his English, ruddy, out-of-doors com-
plexion; flitting on his thin cavalryman's legs across the
doorways, either just "back from the moimtain'*
x^or with jingling spurs and riding-whip imder his arm, on
the point of starting "for the moimtain." Then
Don Pepe, modestly martial in his chair, the Uanero
.who seemed somehow to have found his martial
jocularity, his knowledge of the world, and his manner
perfect for his station, in the midst of savage armed
contests with his kind; Avellanos, polished and
familiar, the diplomatist with his loquacity covering
much caution and wisdom in delicate advice, with his
manuscript of a historical work on Costaguana,
entitled "Fifty Years of Misrule," which, at present, he
thought it was not prudent (even if it were possible)
"to give to the world"; these three, and also Dofia
Emilia amongst them, gracious, small, and fairy-like,
before the glittering tea-set, with one common master-
thought in their heads, with one common feeling of a
tense situation, with one ever-present aim to preserve
the inviolable fharacter of the mine at every cost.
And there was also to be seen Captain Mitchell, a
little apart, near one of the long windows, with an air
of old-fashioned neat old bachelorhood about him,
slightly pompous, in a white waistcoat, a little dis-
regarded and unconscious of it; utterly in the dark, and
imagining himself to be in the thick of things. The
good man, having spent a clear thirty years of his life
on the high seas before getting what he called a "shore
billet," was astonished at the importance of trans-
actions (other than relating to shipping) which take
place on dry land. Almost every event out of the
usual daily course "marked an epoch" for him or else

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 113

was "history"; unless with his pomposity struggling
with a discomfited droop of his rubicund, rather hand-
some face, set off by snow-white close hair and short
whiskers, he woidd mutter —

"Ah, that! That, sir, was a mistake."
The reception of the first consignment of San Tome
silver for shipment to San Francisco in one of the O.S.N.
Co/s mail-boats had, of coiu'se, "marked an epoch" for
Captain Mitchell. The ingots packed in boxes of stiff
ox-hide with plaited handles, small enough to be carried
easily by two men, were brought down by the serenos of
the mine walking in carefid couples along the half-
mile or so of steep, zigzag paths to the foot of the
moimtain. There they would be loaded into a string
of two-wheeled carts, resembling roomy coffers with a
door at the back, and harnessed tandem with two
nudes each, waiting under the guard of armed and
mounted serenos. Don Pepe padlocked each door in
succession, and at the signal of his whistle the string of
carts would move off, closely surrounded by the clank
of spur and carbine, with jolts and cracking of whips,
with a sudden deep rumble over the boundary bridge
("into the land of thieves and sanguinary macaques,"
Don Pep6 defined that crossing) ; hats bobbing in the
first light of the dawn, on the heads of cloaked figures;
Winchesters on hip; bridle hands protruding lean and
brown from under the falling folds of the ponchos. The
convoy skirting a little wood, along the mine trail, be-
tween the mud huts and low walls of Rincon, increased
its pace on the camino real, mules urged to speed, escort
galloping, Don Carlos riding alone ahead of a dust storm
affording a vague vision of long ears of mules, of flut-
tering little green and white flags stuck upon each cart;
of raised arms in a mob of sombreros with the white
gleam of ranging eyes; and Don Pepe, hardly visible in

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114 NOSTROMO

the rear of that rattling dust trail, with a stifif seat and
impassive face, rising and falling rhythmically on an
ewe-necked silver-bitted black brute with a hammer
head.

The sleepy people in the little clusters of huts, in the
small ranchos near the road, recognized by the headlong
sound the charge of the San Tome silver escort towards
the crumbling wall of the city on the Campo side.
They came to the doors to see it dash by over ruts and
stones, with a clatter and clank and cracking of whips,
with the reckless rush and precise driving of a field
/battery hiu'rying into action, and the solitary English
figure of the Senor Administrador riding far ahead in
the lead.

In the fenced roadside paddocks loose horses galloped
wildly for a while; the heavy cattle stood up breast deep
in the grass, lowing mutteringly at the flying noise; a
meek Indian villager would glance back once and
hasten to shove his loaded little donkey bodily against
a wall, out of the way of the San Tome silver escort
going to the sea; a small knot of chilly leperos imder the
Stone Horse of the Alameda would mutter: " Caramba !"
on seeing it take a wide curve at a gallop and dart into
the empty Street of the Constitution; for it was con-
sidered the correct thing, the only proper style by the
mule-drivers of the San Tome mine to go through the
waking town from end to end without a check in the
speed as if chased by a devil.

The early sunshine glowed on the delicate primrose,
pale pink, pale blue fronts of the big houses with all
their gates shut yet, and no face behind the iron bars
of the windows. In the whole sunlit range of empty
balconies along the street only one white figure woidd be
visible high up above the clear pavement — the wife of
the Senor Administrador^-leaning over to see the escort

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 115

go by to the harbour, a mass of heavy, fair hair twisted
up n^ligently on her little head, and a lot of lace about
the neck of her muslin wrapp)er. With a smile to her
husband's single, quick, upward glance, she would watch
the whole thing stream past below her feet with an
orderly uproar, till she answered by d friendly sign the
salute of the galloping Don Pepe, the stiff, deferential
inclination witii a sweep of the hat below the knee.

The string of padlocked carts lengthened, the size of
the escort grew bigger as the years went on. Every
three months an increasing stream of treasure swept
through the streets of Sulaco on its way to the strong
room in the O.S.N. Co.'s building by the harbour,
there to await shipment for the North. Increasing in
volume, and of immense value also; for, as Charles
Gould told his wife once with some exultation, there had
never been seen anything in the world to approach the
vein of the Gould Concession. For them both, each
passing of the escort imder the balconies of tlie Casa
Gould .WQ^.s_ like another victory gained in the conquest^
of peace for Sulaco.

No doubt the initial action of Charles Gould had been
helped at the beginning by a period of comparative
peace which occurred just about that time; and also by
the general softening of manners as compared with the
epoch of civil wars whence had emerged the iron
tyranny of Guzman Bento of fearful memory. In the
contests that broke out at the end qf his rule (which had
kept peace in the country for a whole fifteen years)
there was more fatuous imbecility, plenty of cruelty and
suffering still, but much less of the old-time fierce and
blindly ferocious political fanaticism. It was all more
vile, more base, more contemptible, and infinitely more
manageable in the very outspoken cynicism of motives.
It was more clearly a brazen-faced scramble for a conr

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116 NOSTROMO

stantly diminishing quantity of booty; since all enter-
prise had been stupidly killed in the land. Thus it
came to pass that the province of Sulaco, once the field
of cruel party vengeances, had become in a way one of
the considerable prizes of political career. The great of
the earth (in Sta. Marta) reserved the posts in the old
Occidental State to those nearest and dearest to them:
nephews, brothers, husbands of favourite sisters, bosom
friends, trusty supporters — or prominent supporters of
whom perhaps they were afraid. It was the blessed
province of great opportimities and of largest salaries;
for the San Tome mine had its own imoflScial pay list,
whose items and amounts, fixed in consultation by
Charles Gould and Seiior Avellanos, were known to a
prominent business man in the United States, who for
twenty minutes or so in every month gave his undivided
attention to Sidaco affairs. At the same time the
material interests of all sorts, backed up by the in-
fluence of the San Tome mine, were quietly gathering
substance in that part of the Republic. If, for instance,
the Sulaco Collectorship was generally imderstood, in
the political world of the capital, to open the way to the
Ministry of Finance, and so on for every oflScial post,
then, on the other hand, the despondent business circles
of the Republic had come to consider the Occidental
Province as the promised land of safety, especially if a
man managed to get on good terms with the adminis-
tration of the mine. "Charles Gould; excellent fellow!
Absolutely necessary to make siu-e of him before taking
a single step. Get an introduction to him from Moraga
if you can — ^the agent of the King of Sulaco, don't you
know."

No wonder, then, that Sir John, coming from Europe
to smooth the path for his railway, had been meeting the
name (and even the nickname) of Charles Gould at

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 117

every turn in Costaguana. The agent of the San Tom6
Admmstration in Sta. Marta (a polished, well-informed
get,leinan, Sir John thought him) had certainly helped
so featly in bringing about the presidential tour that he
begm. to think that there was something in the faint
whii^ers hinting at the immense occult influence of
the Gould Concession. What was currently whispered
was this — that the San Tome Administration had, in
part, at least, financed the last revolution, which had
brought into a five-year dictatorship Don Vincente
Ribiera, a man of culture and of imblemished character,
invested with a mandate of reform by the best elements
of the State. Serious, weli-informed men seemed to
believe the fact, to hope for better things, for the
estabhshment of legality, of good faith and order in
public life. So much the better, then, thought Sir John.
He worked always on a great scale; there was a loan to
the State, and a project for systematic colonization of
the Occidental Province, involved in one vast scheme
with the construction of the National Central Railway.
Good faith, order, honesty, peace, were badly wanted
for this great development of material interests. Any-
body on the side of these things, and especially if able
to help, had an importance in Sir John's eyes. He had
not been disappointed in the "King of Sulaco." The
local diflSculties had fallen away, as the engineer-in-chief
had foretold they would, before Charles Gould's medi-
ation. Sir John had been extremely fSted in Sulaco,
next to the President-Dictator, a fact which might have -
accoimted for the evident ill-humour General Montero
displayed at lunch given on board the Juno just before
she was to sail, taking away from Sulaco the President-
Dictator and the distinguished foreign guests in hi^
train.

The Excellentissimo ("the hope of honest nuld said

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118 NOSTROMO

Don Jose had addressed him in a public speecl\delivered
in the name of the Provincial Assembly of Sulac^.sat at
the head of the long table; Captain Mitchell, posiiiv^ly
stony-eyed and purple in the face with the solemnity of
this "historical event," occupied the foot as the repre-
sentative of the O.S.N. Company in Sulaco, the hosts of
that informal function, with the captain of the ship and
some minor oflScials from the shore around him. Those
cheery, swarthy little gentlemen cast jovial side-glances
at the bottles of champagne b^inning to pop behind
the guests' backs in the hands of the ship's stewards.

" rj ( Thg^nVher wJTie creamed up t o the rims of the glass es.

^^ Charles Gould had his place next to a foreign envoy,

who, in a listless imdertone, had been talking to him
fitfully of hunting and shooting. The well-nom-ished,
pale face, with an eyeglass and drooping yellow mous-
tache, made the Seiior Administrador appear by con-
trast twice as simbaked, more flaming red, a hundred
times more intensely and silently alive. Don Jose
Avellanos touched elbows with the other foreign diplo-
mat, a dark man with a quiet, watchful, self-confident
demeanour, and a touch of reserve. All etiquette being
laid aside on the occasion. General Montero was the
^*only one there in full imiform, so stiff with embroideries
in front that his broad chest seemed protected by a
cuirass of gold. Sir John at the beginning had got
away from high places for the sake of sitting near Mrs.
Gould.

The great financier was trying to express to her his
grateful sense of her hospitality and of his obligation to
her husband's "enormous influence in this part of the
coimtry," when she interrupted him by a low "Hush!"
The President was going to make an informal pro-
cement.
Excellentissimo was on his legs. He said only a

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 119

few words, evidently deeply felt, and meant perhaps
mostly for Avellanos — ^his old friend — ^as to the necessity
of unremitting effort to secure the lasting welfare of the
coimtry emerging after this last struggle, he hoped, into
a period of peace and material prosperity.

Mrs. Gould, listening to the mellow, slightly moum-
fid voice, looking at this rotund, dark, spectacled face,
at the short body, obese to the pK)int of infirmity,
thought that this man of delicate and melancholy mind,
physically almost a cripple, coming out of his retire-
ment into a dangerous strife at the call of his fellows,
had the right to speak with the authority of his self-
sacrifice. And yet she was made uneasy. He was
more pathetic than promising; this first civilian Chief of
the State Costaguana had ever known, pronouncing,
glass in hand, his simple watchwords of honesty, peace,
respect for law, political good faith abroad and at
home — ^the safeguards of national honour.

He sat down. Diu'ing the respectfid, appreciative
buzz of voices that followed the speech. General
Montero raised a pair of heavy, drooping eyelids and
rolled his eyes with a sort of imeasy dullness from face
to face. The military backwoods hero of the party,
though secretly impressed by the sudden novelties and
splendoiu's of his position (he had never been on board a
ship before, and had hardly ever seen the sea except
from a distance), understood by a sort of instinct the
advantage his siu-Iy, unpolished attitude of a savagej
fighter gave him amongst all these refined Blanco
aristocrats. But why was it that nobody was looking
at him? he wondered to himself angrily. He was able
to spell out the print of newspapers, and knew that he
had performed the "greatest military exploit of modern
times."

"My husband wanted the railway," Mrs. Goidd said

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^0 NOSTROMO

to Sir John in the general murmur of resumed con-
versations. " All this brings nearer the sort of future we
desire for the country, which has waited for it in sorrow
*\long enough, God knows. But I will confess that the
other day, during my afternoon drive when I suddenly
saw an Indian boy ride out of a wood with the red flag of
\. , a surveying party in his hand, I felt something of a
M shock. The future means change — an utter change.
t:\^ And yet even here there are simple and picturesque
' vix^ things that one would like to preserve.*'

Sir John listened, smiling. But it was his turn now
to hush Mrs. Gould.

" General Montero is going to speak," he whispered,
and almost immediately added, in comic alarm, "Heav*
ens! he's going to propose my own health, I believe."

General Montero had risen with a jingle of steel
scabbard and a ripple of glitter on his gold-embroidered
breast; a heavy sword-hilt appeared at his side above
the edge of the table. In this gorgeous uniform, with
his bull neck, his hooked nose flattened on the tip upon
a blue-black, dyed moustache, he looked like a disguised
and sinister vaquero. The drone of his voice had a
strangely rasping, soulless ring. He floundered, lower-
ing, through a few vague sentences; then suddenly
raising his big head and his voice together, burst out
harshly —
^ "The honour of the coimtry is in the hands of the
army. I assure you I shall be faithful to it." He
hesitated till his roaming eyes met Sir John's face upon
which he fixed a lurid, sleepy glance; and the figure of
the lately negotiated loan came into his mind. He
lifted his glass. "I drink to the health of the man who
brings us a million and a half of poimds."

He tossed off his champagne, and sat down heavily
with a half-siuprised, half -bullying look all round the

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 121

p
faces in the profound, as if appalled, silence which

succeeded the felicitous toast. Sir John did not move.

"I don't think I am called upon to rise," he mur-
mured to Mrs. Gould. "That sort of thing speaks for
itself.*' But Don Jose Avellanos came to the rescue
with a short oration, in which he alluded pointedly to
England's goodwill towards Costaguana — "a goodwill,'*
he continued, significantly, "of which I, having been in
my time accredited to the Coiui: of St. James, am able
to speak with some knowledge."

Only then Sir John thought fit to respond, which he
did gracefully in bad French, pimctuated by bursts of
applause and the " Hear ! Hears ! " of Captain Mitchell,
who was able to understand a word now and then.
Directly he had done, the financier of railways turned to
Mrs. Gould —

"You were good enough to say that you intended to
ask me for something," he reminded her, gallantly.
"What is it? Be assiu'ed that any request from you
would be considered in the light of a favour to myself."

She thanked him by a gracious smile. Everybody
was rising from the table.

"Let us go on deck," she proposed, "where I'll be
able to point out to you the very object of my request."

An enormous national flag of Costaguana, diagonal
red and yellow, with two green palm trees in the middle,
floated lazily at the mainmast head of the Juno. A
multitude of fireworks being let off in their thousands
at the water's edge in honour of the President kept up a
mysterious crepitating noise half round the harbour.
Now and then a lot of rockets, swishing upwards in-
visibly, detonated overhead with only a puff of smoke
in the bright sky. Crowds of people could be seen
between the town gate and the harbour, under the
bunches of multicoloured flags fluttering on tall poles.

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122 NOSTROMO

Faint bursts of military music would be heard suddenly,
and the remote sound of shouting. A knot of ragged
negroes at the end of the wharf kept on loading and
firing a small iron cannon time after time. A greyish
haze of dust hung thin and motionless against the sun.

Don Vincente Ribiera made a few steps imder the
deck-awning, leaning on the arm of Senor Avellanos; a
wide circle was formed round him, where the mirthless
smile of his dark lips and the sightless glitter of his
spectacles could be seen turning amiably from side to
side. The informal function arranged on purpose on
board the Juno to give the President-Dictator an op-
portunity to meet intimately some of his most notable
adherents in Sulaco was drawing to an end. On one
side. General Montero, his bald head covered now by a
plumed cocked hat, remained motionless on a skylight
seat, a pair of big gauntleted hands folded on the hilt
of the sabre standing upright between his legs. The
white plume, the coppery tint of his broad face, the
blue-black of the moustaches imder the curved beak,
the mass of gold on sleeves and breast, the high shining
boots with enormous spurs, the working nostrils, the
imbecile and domineering stare of the glorious victor
of Rio Seco had in them something ominous and in-
Icredible; the exaggeration of a cruel caricature, the
fatuity of solenm masquerading, the atrocious grotes-
queness of some military idol of Aztec conception and
European bedecking, awaiting the homage of wor-
shippers. Don Jose approached diplomatically this
weird and inscrutable portent, and Mrs. Gould turned
her fascinated eyes away at last.

Charles, coming up to take leave of Sir John, heard
him say, as he bent over his wife's hand, "Certainly.
Of course, my dear Mrs. Gould, for a protSgS of yours!
Not the slightest diflSiculty. Consider it done."

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 123

Going ashore in the same boat with the Goulds, Don
Jose Avellanos was very silent. Even in the Gould
carriage he did not open his lips for a long time. The
mules trotted slowly away from the wharf between the
extended hands of the b^gars, who for that day seemed
to have abandoned in a body the portals of churches.
Charles Gould sat on the back seat and looked away
upK)n the plain. A multitude of booths made of green
boughs, of pushes , ofodd pieces of plank eked out withp--
bits of canvas had been j[ff/>t^ all over it Tor the sale oV^ ^ric^ ^
cana, of dulces, of fruit, of cigars. Over little heaps of
glowing charc oal Tnd ian women, squatting on mats,
cookediooiiiitblack earthen pots, and boiled the water
" for the mate gourds, which they pffered ujjsof t, caressing
voices _ to the country people. A racecourse had been
^^jtaked out for the vaqueros; and away to the left, from
where the crowd ^aj^ niflA<spH thi>k)y ftbo^^t ft hug^
te mporary erection , like a circus tent of wood with a
conica l grass roo^, came the resonant twanging of harp
Strings, the sharp ping of guitars, with the grave drum-
ming throb of an Indian gombo^ulsating Readily
througk the shrill choruses of the dancers."

Charles Gould said presently —

"AH this piece of land belongs now to the Railway
Company. There will be no more popular feasts held
here."

Mrs. Gould was rather sorry to think so. She took
this opportunity to mention how she had just obtained
from Sir John the promise that the house occupied by
Giorgio Viola should not be interfered with. She
declared she could never understand why the survey
engineers ever talked of demolishing that old building.
It was not in the way of the projected harbour branch
of the line in the least.

She stopped the carriage before the door to reassure at

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124 NOSTROMO

once the old Genoese, who came out bare-headed and
stood by the carriage step. She talked to him in
Italian, of course, and he thanked her with calm dignity.
An old Garibaldino was grateful to her from the bottom
of his heart for keeping the roof over the heads of his
wife and children. He was too old to wander any more.

"And is it for ever, signora?" he asked.

"For as long as you like."

"Bene. Then the place must be named. It was not
worth while before.'*

He smiled ruggedly, with a running together of
wrinkles at the comers of his eyes. "I shall set about
the painting of the name to-morrow."

"And what is it going to be, Giorgio?"

"Albergo d'ltalia Una," said the old Garibaldino,
looking away for a moment. "More in memory of
those who have died," he added, "than for the coimtry
stolen from us soldiers of liberty by the craft of that
accursed Piedmontese race of kings and ministers."

Mrs. Gould smiled slightly, and, bending over a
little, began to inquire about his wife and children. He
had sent them into town on that day. The padrona
was better in health; many thanks to the signora for
inquiring.

People were passing in twos and threes, in whole
parties of men and women attended by trotting chil-
dren. A horseman moimted on a silver-grey mare drew
rein quietly in the shade of the house after taking oflF his
hat to the party in the carriage, who returned smiles
and familiar nods. Old Viola, evidently very pleased
with the news he had just heard, interrupted himself for
a moment to tell him rapidly that the house was secured,
by the kindness of the English signora, for as long as he
liked to keep it. The other listened attentively, but
made no response.

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 125

When the carriage moved on he took oflF his hat again,
a grey sombrero with a silver cord and tassels. The
bright colours of a Mexican serape twisted on the cantle,
the enormous silver buttons on the embroidered leather/
jacket, the row of tiny silver buttons down the seam of the
trousers, the snowy linen, a silk sash with embroidered
ends, the silver plates on headstall and saddle, proclaimed
the unapproachable style of the famous Capataz de
Cargadores — a Mediterranean sailor — got up with more
finished splendour than any well-to-do young ranchero
of the Campo had ever displayed on a high holiday.

"It is a great thing for me,'* murmured old Giorgio,
still thinking of the house, for now he had grown weary
of change. "The signora just said a word to the
Englishman."

"The old Englishman who has enough money to pay
for a railway? He is going off in an hour," remarked
Nostromo, carelessly. "Buon viaggio, then, I've
guarded his bones all the way from the Entrada pass
down to the plain and into Sidaco, as though he had
been my own father."

Old Giorgio only moved his head sideways absently.
Nostromo pointed after the Goulds' carriage, nearing
the grass-grown gate in the old town wall that was like
a wall of matted jungle.

"And I have sat alone at night with my revolver in
the Company's warehouse time and again by the side of
that other Englishman's heap of silver, guarding it as
though it had been my own."

Viola seemed lost in thought. " It is a great thing for
me," he repeated again, as if to himself.

"It is," agreed the magnificent Capataz de Carga-
dores, calmly. "Listen, Vecchio — go in and bring me
out a cigar, but don't look for it in my room. There's
nothing there."

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126 NOSTROMO

Viola stepped into the caj6 and came out directly,
still absorbed in his idea, and tendered him a cigar,
mumbling thoughtfully in his moustache, "Children
growing up — ^and girls, too! Girls!'* He sighed and
fell silent.

"What, only (me?" remarked Nostromo, looking
down with a sort of comic inquisitiveness at the un-
conscious old man. "No matter," he added, with lofty
negligence; "one is enough till another is wanted."

He lit it and let the match drop from his passive
fingers. Giorgio Viola looked up, and said abruptly —

"My son woidd have been just such a fine young man
as you, Gian' Battista, if he had lived."

"What? Your son? But you are right, padrone.
If he had been like me he would have been a man."

He turned his horse slowly, and paced on between the
booths, checking the mare almost to a standstill now
and then for children, for the groups of people from the
distant Campo, who stared after him with admiration.
The Company's lightermen saluted him from afar; and
the greatly envied Capataz de Cargadores advanced,
amongst murmurs of recognition and obsequious greet-
ings, towards the huge circus-lik« erection. The throng
thickened; the guitars tinkled louder; other horsemen
sat motionless, smoking calmly above the heads of the
crowd; it eddied and pushed before the doors of the
high-roofed building, whence issued a shuffle and
thumping of feet in time to the dance music vibrating
and shrieking with a racking rhythm, overhimg by the
tremendous, sustained, hollow roar of the gombo. The
barbarous and imposing noJse of the big drum, that
can madden a crowd, and that even Europeans cannot
hear without a strange emotion, seemed to draw
Nostromo on to its source, while a man, wrapped up in
a faded, torn poncho, walked by hi3 stirrup, and.

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 127

buffeted right and left, begged "his worship" in-
sistently for employment on the wharf. He whined,
offering the Senor Capataz half his daily pay for the
privilege of being admitted to the swaggering fraternity
of Cargadores; the other half would be enough for him,
he protested. But Captain Mitchell's right-hand man^ — ^
"invaluable for our work — ^a perfectly incorruptible
fellow" — ^after looking down critically at the ragged
mozo, shook his head without a word in the uproar
going on aroimd.

The man fell back; and a little further on Nostromo (^ <^ ^
had to pull up. From the doors of the dance hall men^ ^ -/
and women emerged tottering, streaming with sweat, \
trembling in ^ very limb, to lejEya, panting, with staring "^ ,
€yes and parted lips, against the wall of the structure, (^- '
where the harps and guitars played on with mad speed -
m an incessant roll of thunder. Hundreds of hands ^ ' ,
clapped in there; voices shrieked, and then all at once ^'
would sink low, chanting in imison the refrain of a love
song, with a dying fall. A red flower, flung with a good
aim from somewhere in the crowd, struck the resplen-
dent Capataz on the cheek.

He caught it as it fell, neatly, but for some time did
not turn his head. When at last he condescended to
look roimd, the throng near him had parted to make
way for a pretty Morenita, her hair held up by a small
golden comb, who was walking towards him in the open
space. ^

Her arms and neck emerged plump and bare from a
snowy chemisette; the blue woollen skirt, with all the
fullness gathered in front, scanty on the hips and tight
across the back, disclosed the provoking action of her
walk. She came straight on and laid her hand on the
mare's neck with a timid, coquettish look upwards out
of the corner of her eyes.

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138 NOSTROMO

"Querido," she murmured, caressingly, "why do you
pretend not to see me when I pass?"

" Because I don't love thee any more,*' said Nostromo,
deliberately, after a moment of reflective silence.

The hand on the mare's neck trembled suddenly.
She dropped her head before all the eyes in the wide
circle formed round the generous, the terrible, the in-
constant Capataz de Cargadores, and his Morenita.

Nostromo, looking down, saw tears beginning to
fall down her face.

"Has it come, then, ever beloved of my heart?" she
whispered. "Is it true?"

"No," said Nostromo, looking away carelessly. "It
was a lie. I love thee as much as ever."

"Is that true?" she cooed, joyously, her cheeks still
wet with tears.

"It is true."

"True on the life?"

"As true as that; but thou must not ask me to swear
it on the Madonna that stands in thy room." And the
Capataz laughed a httle in response to the grins of the
crowd.

She pouted — very pretty — a little uneasy.

"No, J will not ask for that. I can see love in your
eyes," She laid her hand on his knee. "Why are you
trembling like this? From love?" she continued,
while the cavernous thimdering of the gombo went on
without a pause. "But if you love her as much as that,
you must give your Paquita a gold-mounted rosary of
Xbeads for the neck of her Madonna."

"No," said Nostromo, looking into her uplifted,
begging eyes, which suddenly turned stony with surprise.

"No? Then what else will your worship give me on
the day of the fiesta?" she asked, angrily; "so as not to
shame me before all these people,"

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THE SILVER tF THE MINE l*d

''There is no shame for thee in getting nothing from
thy lover for once."

"True! The shame is your worship*s — my poor
lover's," she flared up, sarcastically.

Laughs were heard at her anger, at her retort. What
an audacious spitfire she was! The people aware of
this scene were calling out urgently to others in the
crowd. The circle round the silver-grey mare narrowed
slowly.

The girl went oS a pace or two, confronting the mock-
ing curiosity of the eyes, then flimg back to the stirrup,
tiptoeing, her enraged face turned up to Nostromo with
a pair of blazing eyes. He bent low to her in the sad-
dle.
"Juan," she hissed, "I could stab thee to the heart!"
The dreaded Capataz de Cargadores, magnificent and
cardessly public in his amours, flimg his arm round her
neck and kissed her spluttering lips. A murmur went
round.

"A knife!" he demanded at large, holding her finnly
by the shoulder.

Twenty blades flashed out together in the circle. A
young man in holiday attire, boimding in, thrust one in
Nostromo's hand and bounded back into the ranks, very
proud of himself. Nostromo had not even looked at
him.

'* Stand on my foot," he commanded the girl, who,
suddenly subdued, rose lightly, and when he had her up,
encircling her waist, her face near to his, he pressed the
knife into her little hand.

"No, Morenita! You shall not put me to shame,"
he said. "You shall have your present; and so that
everyone should know who is your lover to-day, you
may cut all the silver buttons oS my coat."

There were shouts of laughter and applause at this

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130 NOSTROMO

witty freak, while the girl passed the keen blade, and
the impassive rider jingled in his palm the increasing
hoard of silver buttons. He eased her to the ground
with both her hands full. After whispering for a while
with a very strenuous face, she walked away, staring
haughtily, and vanished into the crowd.

The circle had broken up, and the lordly Capataz de
Cargadores, the indispensable man, the tried and trusty
Nostromo, the Mediterranean sailor come ashore
casually to try his luck in Costaguana, rode slowly
towards the harbour. The Juno was just then swing-
ing roimd; and even as Nostromo reined up again to
look on, a flag ran up on the improvised flagstaff erected
in an ancient and dismantled little fort at the harbour
entrance. Half a battery of field guns had been hur-
ried over there from the Sulaco barracks for the
purpose of firing the regulation salutes for the President-
Dictator and the War Minister. As the mail-boat
headed through the pass, the badly timed reports
announced the end of Don Vincente Ribiera's first
official visit to Sulaco, and for Captain Mitchell the end
of another "historic occasion." Next time when the
"Hope of honest men" was to come that way, a year
and a half later, it was unoflScially, over the mountain
tracks, fleeing after a defeat on a lame mule, to be only
just saved by Nostromo from an ignominious death at
the hands of a mob. It was a very different event, of
which Captain Mitchell used to say —

"It was history — ^history, sir! And that fellow of
mine, Nostromo, you know, was right in it. Absolutely
making history, sir."

But this event, creditable to Nostromo, was to lead
immediately to another, which could not be classed
either as "history" or as "a mistake" in Captain
Mitchell's phraseology. He had another word for it.

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THE SILVER OF THE MINE 131

"Sir," he used to say afterwards, "that was no mis-
take. It was a fatahty. A misfortune, pure and
simple, sir. And that poor fellow of mine was right in
it — right in the middle of it! A fatality, if ever there
was one — and to my mind he has never been the same
man since/'

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PART SECOND

THE ISABELS

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CHAPTER ONE

Through good and evil report in the varying fortune
of that struggle which Don Jose had characterized in/
the phrase, "the fate of national honesty trembles in the
balance," the Gould Concession, "Imperium in Im-
perio," had gone on working; the square mountain had
gone on pouring its treasure down the wooden shoots
to the unresting batteries of stamps; the lights of San
Tome had twinkled night after night upon the great,
limitless shadow of the Campo; every three months
the silver escort had gone down to the sea as if neither
the war nor its consequences could ever affect the
ancient Occidental State secluded beyond its high
barrier of the Cordillera. All the fighting took place
on the other side of that mighty wall of serrated peaks
lorded over by the white dome of Higuerota and as yet
unbreached by the railway, of which only the first part,
the easy Campo part from Sulaco to the Ivie Valley at
the foot of the pass, had been laid. Neither did the
telegraph line cross the mountains yet; its poles, like
slender beacons on the plain, penetrated into the forest
fringe of the foot-hills cut by the deep avenue of the
track; and its wire ended abruptly in the construction
camp at a white deal table supporting a Morse ap-
paratus, in a long hut of planks with a corrugated iron
roof overshadowed by gigantic cedar trees — the quar-
ters of the engineer in charge of the advance section.

The harbour was busy, too, with the traflSc in rail-
way material, and with the movements of troops along
the coast. The O.S.N. Company found much occupa-

X35

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136 NOSTROMO

tion for its fleet. Costaguana had no navy, and, apart
from a few coastguard cutters, there were no national
ships except a couple of old merchant steamers used as
transports.

Captain Mitchell, feeling more and more in the thick
of history, found time for an hour or so during an
afternoon in the drawing-room of the Casa Gould,
where, with a strange ignorance of the real forces at
work around him, he professed himself delighted to get
away from the strain of afiFairs. He did not know what
he would have done without his invaluable Nostromo,
he declared. Those confounded Costaguana politics
gave him more work — ^he confided to Mrs. Gould —
than he had bargained for.

^ Don Jose Avellanos had displayed in the service of the
/endangered Ribiera Government an organizing activity
\ and an eloquence of which the echoes reached even
Europe. For, after the new loan to the Ribiera Govern-
ment, Europe had become interested in Costaguana.
The Sala of the Provincial Assembly (in the Municipal
Buildings of Sulaco), with its portraits of the Liberators
on the walls and an old flag of Cortez preserved in a
glass case above the President's chair, had heard all
these speeches — the early one containing the im-
passioned declaration "Militarism is the enemy," the
famous one of the "trembling balance" delivered on
the occasion of the vote for the raising of a second
Sulaco regiment in the defence of the reforming Govern-
ment; and when the provinces again displayed their
old flags (proscribed in Guzman Bento's time) there
was another of those great orations, when Don Jose
greeted these old emblems of the war of Independence,
brought out again in the name of new Ideals. The
old idea of Federalism had disappeared. For his part
he did not wish to revive old political doctrines. They

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THE ISABELS 137

were perishable. They died. But the doctrine of '
political rectitude was immortal. The second Sulaco
regiment, to whom he was presenting thia flag, was going
to show its valour in a contest for order, peace, progress;
for the estabhshment of national self-respect without
which — he declared with energy — " we are a reproach
and a byword amongst the powers of the world."

Don Jose Avellanos loved his country. He had
served it lavishly with his fortune during his diplomatic
career, and the later story of his captivity and bar-
barous ill-usage under Guzman Bento was well known
to his listeners. It was a wonder that he had not been
a victim of the ferocious and summary executions which
marked the coiu'se of that tyranny; for Guzman had
ruled the country with the sombre imbecility of political
fanaticism. The power of Supreme Government had
become in his dull mind an object of strange worship, as
if it were some sort of cruel deity. It was incarnated in
himself, and his adversaries, the Federalists, were the
supreme sinners, objects of hate, abhorrence, and fear,
as heretics would be to a convinced Inquisitor. For
years he had carried about at the tail of the Army of
Pacification, all over the country, a captive band of
such atrocious criminals, who considered themselves
most unfortunate at not having been summarily exe-
cuted. It was a diminishing company of nearly naked
skeletons, loaded with irons, covered with dirt, with
vermin, with raw wounds, all men of position, of educa-
tion, of wealth, who had learned to fight amongst them-
selves for scraps of rotten beef thrown to them by
soldiers, or to beg a negro cook for a drink of muddy
water in pitiful accents. Don Jose Avellanos, clanking
his chains amongst the others, seemed only to exist in
order to prove how much hunger, pain, degradation,
and cruel tx)rture a human body can stand without

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138 NOSTROMO

parting with the last spark of life. Sometimes interroga-
tories, backed by some primitive method of torture,
were administered to them by a commission of oflScers
hastily assembled in a hut of sticks and branches, and
made pitiless by the fear for their own lives. A lucky
one or two of that spectral company of prisoners would
perhaps be led tottering behind a bush to be shot by a
file of soldiers. Always an army chaplain — some un-
shaven, dirty man, girt with a sword and with a tiny
cro6s embroidered in white cotton on the left breast of a
lieutenant's uniform — would follow, cigarette in the
comer of the mouth, wooden stool in hand, to hear the
confession and give absolution; for the Citizen Saviour
of the Country (Guzman Bento was called thus oflScially
in petitions) was not averse from the exercise of rational
clemency. The irregular report of the firing squad
would be heard, followed sometimes by a single finish-
ing shot; a little bluish cloud of smoke would float up
above the green bushes, and the Army of Pacification
would move on over the savannas, through the forests,
crossing rivers, invading rural pueblos, devastating the
haciendas of the horrid aristocrats, occupying the in-
land towns in the fulfilment of its patriotic mission, and
leaving behind a united land wherein the evil taint of
Federalism could no longer be detected in the smoke of
burning houses and the smell of spilt blood.

Don Jose Avellanos had survived that time.

Perhaps, when contemptuously signifying to him his
release, the Citizen Saviour of the Country might have
thought this benighted aristocrat too broken in health
and spirit and fortune to be any longer dangerous. Or,
perhaps, it may have been a simple caprice. Guzman
Bento, usually full of fanciful fears and brooding sus-
picions, had sudden accesses of unreasonable self-
confidence when he perceived himself elevated on a

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THE ISABELS 139

pinnacle of power and safety beyond the reach of mere
mortal plotters. At such times he would impulsively
command the celebration of a solenm Mass of thanks-
giving, which would be sung in great pomp in the
cathedral of Sta. Marta by the trembling, subservient
Archbishop of his creation. He heard it sitting in a
gilt armchair placed before the high altar, surrounded
by the civil and military heads of his Government.
The unofficial world of Sta. Marta would crowd into
the cathedral, for it was not quite safe for anybody of
mark to stay away from these manifestations of presi-
dential piety. Having thus acknowledged the only
power he was at all disposed to recognize as above him-
self, he would scatter acts of political grace in a sardonic
wantonness of clemency. There was no other way left
now to enjoy his power but by seeing his crushed
adversaries crawl impotently into the light of day out of
the dark, noisome cells of the CoUegio. Their harmless-
ness fed his insatiable vanity, and they couM always be
got hold of again. It was the rule for all the women of
their families to present thanks afterwards in a special
audience. The incarnation of that strange god, El
Gobiemo Supremo, received them standing, cocked
hat on head, and exhorted them in a menacing mutter
to show their gratitude by bringing up their children in
fidelity to the democratic form of government, "which
I have established for the happiness of our country."
His front teeth having been knocked out in some ac-
cident of his former herdsman's life, his utterance was
spluttering and indistinct. He had been working for
Costaguana alone in the midst of treachery and op-
position. Let it cease now lest he should become
weary of forgiving!

Don Jose Avellanos had known this forgiveness.

He was broken in health and fortune deplorably

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140 NOSTROMO

enough to present a truly gratifying spectacle to the
supreme chief of democratic institutions. He retired
to Sulaco. His wife had an estate in that province, and
she nursed him back to life out of the house of death and
captivity. When she died, their daughter, an only
child, was old enough to devote herself to "poor papa."
Miss Avellanos, bom in Eiu^ope and educated partly
in England, was a tall, grave girl, with a self-possessed
manner, a wide, white forehead, a wealth of rich brown
hair, and blue eyes.

The other young ladies of Sulaco stood in awe of her
character and accomplishments. She was reputed to
be terribly learned and serious. As to pride, it was
well known that all the Corbelans were proud, and her
mother was a Corbelan. Don Jose Avellanos depended
very much upon the devotion of his beloved Antonia.
He accepted it in the benighted way of men, who,
though made in God*s image, are like stone idols without
sense before the smoke of certain biunt ofiFerings. He
was ruined in every way^ but a man possessed of pas-
^ sion is not a bankrupt in life. Don Jose Avellanos
desired passionately for his country: peace, prosperity,
and (as the end of the preface to "Fifty Years of Mis-
rule" has it) "an honourable place in the comity of
civilized nations.*' In this last phrase the Minister
Plenipotentiary, cruelly humiliated by the bad faith
of his Government towards the foreign bondholders,
stands disclosed in the patriot.

The fatuous turmoil of greedy factions succeeding the
tyranny of Guzman Bento seemed to bring his desire to
the very door of opportimity. He was too old to
descend personally into the centre of the arena at Sta.
Marta. But the men who acted there sought his ad-
vice at every step. He himself thought that he could
be most useful at a distance, in Sulaco. His name, his

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THE ISABELS 141

connections, his former position, his experience com-
manded the respect of his class. The discovery that
this man, living in dignified poverty in the Corbelan
town residence (opposite the Casa Gould), could dis-
pose of material means towards the support of the
cause increased his influence. It was his open letter of
appeal that decided the candidature of Don Vincente
Ribiera for the Presidency. Another of these informal
State papers drawn up by Don Jose (this time in the
shape of an address from the Province) induced that
scrupulous constitutionalist to accept the extraordinary
powers conferred upon him for five years by an over-
whelming vote of congress in Sta. Marta. It was a
specific mandate to establish the prosperity of the
people on the basis of firm peace at home, and to redeem
the national credit by the satisfaction of all just claims
abroad.

On the afternoon the news of that vote had reached
Sulaco by the usual roundabout postal way through
Cayta, and up the coast by steamer. Don Jose, who
had been waiting for the mail in the Goulds' drawing-
room, got out of the rocking-chair, letting his hat fall
off his knees. He rubbed his silvery, short hair with
both hands, speechless with the excess of joy.

"Emilia, my soul," he had burst out, "let me em-
brace you ! Let me ' *

Captain Mitchell, had he been there, would no doubt
have made an apt remark about the dawn of a new era;
but if Don Jose thought something of the kind, his
eloquence failed him on this occasion. The inspirer of
that revival of the Blanco party tottered where he
stood. Mrs. Gould moved forward quickly and, as she
offered her cheek with a smile to her old friend, managed
very cleverly to give him the support of her arm he
really needed.

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142 NOSTR#M#

Don Jose had recovered himself at once, but for a
time he could do no more than murmur, "Oh, you two
patriots ! Oh, you two patriots ! " — looking from one to
the other. Vague plans of another historical work,
wherein all the devotions to the regeneration of the
country he loved would be enshrined for the reverent
worship of posterity, flitted through his mind. The
historian who had enough elevation of soul to write of
Guzman Bento: "Yet this monster, imbrued in the
blood of his countrymen, must not be held imreservedly
to the execration of future years. It appears to be
true that he, too, loved his country. He had given it
twelve years of peace; and, absolute master of lives and
fortunes as he was, he died poor. His worst fault, per-
haps, was not his ferocity, but his ignorance;" the man
who could write thus of a cruel persecutor (the passage
occurs in his "History of Misrule") felt at the fore-
shadowing of success an almost boundless affection for
his two helpers, for these two young people from over
the sea.

Just as years ago, calmly, from the conviction of
practical necessity, stronger than any abstract political
doctrine, Henry Gould had drawn the sword, so now.
the times being changed, Charles Gould had flung the
silver of the San Tome into the fray. The Inglez of
Sulaco, the "Costaguana Englishman" of the third
generation, was as far from being a political intriguer as
his uncle from a revolutionary swashbuckler. Spring-
ing from the instinctive uprightness of their natures
their action was reasoned. They saw an opportunity
and used the weapon to hand.

Charles Gould's position — a commanding position in
the background of that attempt to retrieve the peace
and the credit of the Republic — was very clear. At the
beginning he had had to accommodate himself to exist-

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i^ ^ THE ISABELS 143

ing circumstances of corruption so naively brazen as to
disarm the hate of a man courageous enough not to be
afraid of its irresponsible potency to ruin everything it
touched. It seemed to him too contemptible for hot
anger even. He made use of it with a cold, fearless
scorn, manifested rather than concealed by the forms
of stony courtesy which did away with much of the
ignominy of the situation. At bottom, perhaps, he
suffered from it, for he was not a man of cowardly
illusions, but he refused to discuss the ethical view with
his wife. He trusted that, though a Uttle disenchanted,
she would be intelligent enough to understand that his
character safeguarded the enterprise of their lives
as much or more than his poHcy. The extraordinary
development of the mine had put a great power into his
hands. To feel that prosperity always at the mercy of
unintelligent greed had grown irksome to him. To
Mrs. Gould it was humiliating. At any rate, it was
dangerous. In the confidential communications pass-
ing between Charles Gould, the King of Sulaco, and the
head of the silver and steel interests far away in Cali-
fornia, the conviction was growing that any attempt;
made by men of education and integrity ought to be
discreetly supported. "You may tell your friend
Avellanos that I think so," Mr. Holroyd had written
at the proper moment from his inviolable sanctuary
within the eleven-storey high factory of great affairs.
And shortly afterwards, with a credit opened by the
Third Southern Bank (located next door but one to the
Holroyd Building), the Ribierist party in Costaguana
took a practical shape under the eye of the administra-
tor of the San Tome mine. And Don Jose, the heredi-
tary friend of the Gould family, could say: "Perhaps,
my dear Carlos, I shall not have believed in vain."

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CHAPTER TWO

After another armed struggle, decided by Montero^s
victory of Rio Seco, had been added to the tale of civil
wars, the "honest men," as Don Jos6 called them, could
breathe freely for the first time in half a century. The
Five- Year-Mandate law became the basis of that re-
generation, the passionate desire and hope for which had
been like the elixir of everlasting youth for Don Jose
Avellanos.

And when it was suddenly — and not quite unexpect-
edly — endangered by that "brute Montero," it was a
passionate indignation that gave him a new lease of
life, as it were. Already, at the time of the President-
Dictator's visit to Sulaco, Moraga had sounded a note
of warning from Sta. Marta about the War Minister.
Montero and his brother made the subject of an earnest
talk between the Dictator-President and the Nestor-
inspirer of the party. But Don Vincente, a doctor of
philosophy from the Cordova University, seemed to
have an exaggerated respect for military ability, whose
mysteriousness — since it appeared to be altogether
independent of intellect — imposed upon his imagina-
tion. The victor of Rio Seco was a popular hero. His
services were so recent that the President-Dictator
quailed before the obvious charge of political ingrati-
tude. Great regenerating transactions were being
initiated — ^the fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast
colonization scheme. Anything that could unsettle
the public opinion in the capital was to be avoided.
Don Jose bowed to these arguments and tried to dismiss

: : 144

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THE ISABELS 145

from his mind the gold-laced portent in boots, and with
a sabre, made meaningless now at last, he hoped, in the
new order of things.

Less than six months after the President-Dictator's
visit, Sulaco learned with stupefaction of the military
revolt in the name of national honour. The Minister
of War, in a barrack-square allocution to the oflScers of
the artillery regiment he had been inspecting, had
declared the national honour sold to foreigners. The
Dictator, by his weak compliance with the demands of
the European powers — for the settlement of long out-/
standing money claims — ^had showed himself imfit to
rule. A letter from Moraga explained afterwards that
the initiative, and even the very text, of the incendiary
allocution came, in reality, from the other Montero, the
ex-guerillero, the Commandante de Plaza. The ener-
getic treatment of Dr. Monygham, sent for in haste "to
the moimtain," who came galloping three leagues in the
dark, saved Don Jose from a dangerous attack of
jaundice.

After getting over the shock, Don Jos6 refused to let
himself be prostrated. Lideed, better news succeeded
at first. The revolt in the capital had been suppressed
after a night of fighting in the streets. Unfortunately,
both the Monteros had been able to make their escape
south, to their native province of Entre-Montes. The
hero of the forest march, the victor of Rio Seco, had
been received with frenzied acclamations in Nicoya, the
provincial capital. The troops in garrison there had
gone to him in a body. The brothers were organizing
an army, gathering malcontents, sending emissaries
primed with patriotic lies to the people, and with
promises of plunder to the wild Uaneros. Even a
Monterist press had come into existence, speaking
oracularly of the secret promises of support given by,

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146 NOSTROMO

"our great sister Republic of the North" against the
sinister land-grabbing designs of European powers,
cursing in every issue the "miserable Ribiera," who
had plotted to deliver his country, bound hand and foot,
for a prey to foreign speculators.

Sulaco, pastoral and sleepy, with its opulent Campo
and the rich silver mine, heard the din of arms fitfully
in its fortunate isolation. It was nevertheless in the
very forefront of the defence with men and money; but
the very rumours reached it circuitously — ^f rom abroad
even, so much was it cut off from the rest of the Re-
public, not only by natural obstacles, but also by the
vicissitudes of the war. The Monteristos were be-
sieging Cayta, an important postal link. The over-
land couriers ceased to come across the mountains, and
no muleteer would consent to risk the journey at last;
even Bonifacio on one occasion failed to return from
Sta. ]!ilaftar~either not daring to start, or perhaps
captured by the parties of the enemy raiding the
country between the Cordillera and the capital. Mon-
terist publications, however, foimd their way into the
province, mysteriously enough; and also Monterist
emissaries preaching death to aristocrats in the villages
and towns of the Campo. Very early, at the beginning
of the trouble, Hernandez, the bandit, had proposed
(through the agency of an old priest of a village in the
wilds) to deliver two of them to the Ribierist authori-
ties in Tonoro. They had come to offer him a free
pardon and the rank of colonel from General Montero
in consideration of joining the rebel army with his
mounted band. No notice was taken at the time of the
proposal. It was joined, as an evidence of good faith,
to a petition praying the Sulaco Assembly for per-
mission to enlist, with all his followers, in the forces
being then raised in Sulaco for the defence of the Five-

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THE ISABELS 147

Year Mandate of regeneration. The petition, like
everything else, had found its way into Don Jose's
hands. He had showed to Mrs. Gould these pages of
dirty-greyish rough paper (perhaps looted in some
village store), covered with the crabbed, ilKterate hand-
writing of the old padre, carried off from his hut by the
side of a mud-walled church to be the secretary of the
dreaded Salteador. They had both bent in the lamp-
light of the Gould drawing-room over the document
containing the fierce and yet humble appeal of the man
against the blind and stupid barbarity turning an hon-
est ranchero into a bandit. A postscript of the priest
stated that, but for being deprived of his liberty for
ten days, he had been treated with humanity and the
respect due to his sacred calling. He had been, it ap-
pears, confessing and absolving the chief and most of
the band, and he guaranteed the sincerity of their good
disposition. He had distributed heavy penances, no
doubt in the way of litanies and fasts; but he argued
shrewdly that it would be difficult for them to make
their peace with God durably till they had made peace
with men.

Never before, perhaps, had Hernandez's head been
in less jeopardy than when he petitioned humbly for
permission to buy a pardon for himself and his gang of
deserters by armed service. He could range afar from
the waste lands protecting his fastness, unchecked, be-
cause there were no troops left in the whole province.
The usual garrison of Sulaco had gone south to the
war, with its brass band playing the Bolivar march on
the bridge of one of the O.S.N. Company's steamers.
The great family coaches drawn up along the shore of the
harbour were made to rock on the high leathern springs
by the enthusiasm of the senoras and the senoritas
standing up to wave their lace handkerchiefs, as lighter

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148 NOSTROMO

after lighter packed full of troops left the end of the
jetty.

Nostromo directed the embarkation, under the super-
intendendence of Captain Mitchell, red-faced in the
sun, conspicuous in a white waistcoat, representing the
allied and anxious goodwill of all the material interests
fof civilization. General Barrios, who commanded the
troops, assured Don Jose on parting that in three weeks
he would have Montero in a wooden cage drawn by
three pair of oxen ready for a tour through all the towns
of the Republic.

"And then, sefiora/' he continued, baring his curly
iron-grey head to Mrs. Gould in her landau — "and
then, seiiora, we shall convert our swords into plough-
shares and grow rich. Even I, myself, as soon as this
little business is settled, shall open a fundacion on some
land I have on the llanos and try to make a little money
in peace and quietness. Seflora, you know, all Costa-
guana knows — what do I say? — this whole South
American continent knows, that Pablo Barrios has had
his fill of miUtary glory.*'

Charles Gould was not present at the anxious and
patriotic send-off. It was not his part to see the soldiers
embark. It was neither his part, nor his inclination,
nor his policy. His part, his inclination, and his policy
were united in one endeavour to keep unchecked the
flow of treasure he had started single-handed from the
re-opened scar in the flank of the mountain. As the
mine developed he had trained for himself some native
help. There were foremen, artificers and clerks, with
Don Pepe for the gobemador of the mining population.
For the rest his shoulders alone sustained the whole
weight of the "Imperium in Imperio," the great Gould
Concession whose mere shadow had been enough to
crush the life out of his father.

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THE ISABELS 149

Mrs. Gould had no sUver mine to look after. In the
general life of the Gould Concession she was represented
by her two lieutenants, the doctor and the priest, but
she fed her woman's love of excitement on events whose
significance was purified to her by the fire of het^
imaginative purpose. On that day she had brought the
Avellanos, father and daughter, down to the harbour
with her.

Amongst his other activities of that stirring time,
Don Jose had become the chairman of a Patriotic Com-
mittee which had armed a great proportion of troops in
the Sulaco command with an improved model of a mili-
tary rifle. It had been just discarded for something
still more deadly by one of the great European powers.
How much of the market-price for second-hand weapons
was covered by the voluntary contributions of the
principal families, and how much came from those
funds Don Jose was understood to command abroad,
remained a secret which he alone could have disclosed;
but the Ricos, as the populace called them, had con-
tributed under the pressure of their Nestor's eloquence.
Some of the more enthusiastic ladies had been moved to
bring offerings of jewels into the hands of the man who
was the life and soul of the party.

There were moments when both his life and his soul
seemed overtaxed by so many years of undiscouraged
belief in regeneration. He appeared almost inanimate,
sitting rigidly by the side of Mrs. Gould in the landau,
with his fine, old, clean-shaven face of a uniform tint as
if modelled in yellow wax, shaded by a soft felt hat,
the dark eyes looking out fixedly. Antonia, the
beautiful Antonia, as Miss Avellanos was called in
Sulaco, leaned back, facing them; and her full figure, the
grave oval of her face with full red lips, made her look
more mature than Mrs. Gould, with her mobile ex-

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150 NOSTROMO

pression and small, erect person under a slightly swaying
sunshade.

Whenever possible Antonia attended her father; her
recognized devotion weakened the shocking effect of her
scorn for the rigid conventions regulating the life of
Spanish-American girlhood. And, in truth, she was no
longer girlish. It was said that she often wrote State
papers from her father's dictation, and was allowed to
read all the books in his library. At the receptions —
where the situation was saved by the presence of a very
decrepit old lady (a relation of the Corbelans), quite
deaf and motionless in an armchair — Antonia could
hold her own in a discussion with two or three men at a
time. Obviously she was not the girl to be content
with peeping through a barred window at a cloaked
figure of a lover ensconced in a doorway opposite —
which is the correct form of Costaguana courtship. It
was generally believed that with her foreign upbringing
and foreign ideas the learned and proud Antonia would
never marry — unless, indeed, she married a foreigner
from Europe or North America, now that Sulaco seemed
on the point of being invaded by all the world.

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CHAPTER THREE

When General Barrios stopped to address Mrs.
Gould, Antonia raised negligently her hand holding an
open fan, as if to shade from the sun her head, wrapped
in a light lace shawl. The clear gleam of her blue eyes
ghding behind the black fringe of eyelashes paused for a
moment upon her father, then travelled further to tlio
figure of a young man of thirty at most, of medium
height, rather thick-set, wearing a light overcouL.
Bearing down with the open palm of his hand upon tiie
knob of a flexible cane, he had been looking on from a
distance; but directly he saw himself noticed, he ap-
proached quietly and put his elbow over the door of the
landau.

The shirt collar, cut low in the neck, the big bow of
his cravat, the style of his clothing, from the round hat
to the varnished shoes, suggested an idea of French
elegance; but otherwise he was the very type of a fair
Spanish creole. The fluffy moustache and the short,
curly, golden beard did not conceal his lips, rosy, fresh,
almost pouting in expression. His full, round face was
of that warm, healthy creole white which is never
tanned by its native sunshine. Martin Decoud was
seldom exposed to the Costaguana sun under which he
was bom. His people had been long settled in Paris,
where he had studied law, had dabbled in literature, had
hoped now and then in moments of exaltation to be-
come a poet like that other foreigner of Spanish blood,
Jose Maria Heredia. In other moments he had, to pass
the time, condescended to write articles on European

151

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152 NOSTROMO

affairs for the SemenariOy the principal newspaper in
Sta. Marta, which printed them under the heading
"From our special correspondent," though the author-
ship was an open secret. Everybody in Costaguana,
where the tale of compatriots in Europe is jealously
kept, knew that it was "the son Decoud," a talented
young man, supposed to be moving in the higher
spheres of Society. As a matter of fact, he was an idle
boulevardier, in touch with some smart journalists,
made free of a few newspaper oflSces, and welcomed in
the pleasure haunts of pressmen. This life, whose
dreary superficiality is covered by the glitter of univer-
sal blague, like the stupid clowning of a harlequin by
the spangles of a motley costume, induced in him a
Frenchified — but most un-French — cosmopolitanism, in
reality a mere barren indifferentism posing as intellec-
tual superiority. Of his own country he used to say to
his French associates: "Imagine an atmqsphere of
opera-bouffe in which all the comic business of stage
statesmen, brigands, etc., etc., all their farcical stealing,
intriguing, and stabbing is done in dead earnest. It is
screamingly funny, the blood fiows all the time, and
the actors believe themselves to be influencing the fate
of the universe. Of course, government in general, any
government anywhere, is a thing of exquisite comicality
to a discerning mind; but really we Spanish-Americans
do overstep the bounds. No man of ordinary intelli-
^gence can take part in the intrigues of une farce macabre.
However, these Ribierists, of whom we hear so much
just now, are really trying in their own comical way to
make the country habitable, and even to pay some of
its debts. My friends, you had better write up Sefior
Ribiera all you can in kindness to your own bondholders.
Really, if what I am told in my letters is true, there is
some chance for them at last."

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THE ISABELS 158

And he would explain with railing verve what Don
Vincente Ribiera stood for — a mournful little man op-
pressed by his own good intentions, the significance of
battles won, who Montero was (un grotesque varvUeux et
firoce)^ and the manner of the new loan connected with
railway development, and the colonization of vast
tracts of land in one great financial scheme.

And his French friends would remark that evidently
this little fellow Decoud connaissait la question a fond.
An important Parisian review asked him for an article
on the situation. It was compnjsed in a serious tone and
in a spirit of levity. Afterwards he asked one of his
intimates

"Have you read my thing about the regeneration of
Costaguana — une bonne blague, hein?^^

He imagined himself Parisian to the tips of his fingers.
But far from being that he was in danger of remaining a
sort of nondescript dilettante all his life. He had \
pushed the habit of universal raillery to a point where it
blinded him to the genuine impulses of his own nature.
To be suddenly selected for the executive member of
the patriotic small-arms committee of Sulaco seemed to
him the height of the imexpected, one of those fantastic
moves of which only his "dear countrymen" were
capable.

"It's like a tile falling on my head. I — ^I — executive
member! It's the first I hear of it! What do I know
of military rifles? Cest funambulesque T* he had ex-
claimed to his favourite sister; for the Decoud family-—
except the old father and mother — ^used the French
language amongst themselves. "And you should see
the explanatory and confidential letter! Eight pages
of it — no less!"

This letter, in Antonia's handwriting, was signed by
Don Jose, who appealed to the "young and gifted

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154 NOSTROMO

Costaguanero " on public grounds, and privately opened
his heart to his talented god-son, a man of wealth and
leisure, with wide relations, and by his parentage and
bringing-up worthy of all confidence.

"Which means," Martin commented, cynically, to
his sister, "that I am not likely to misappropriate
the funds, or go blabbing to our Charge d'Affaires
here."

The whole thing was being carried out behind the
back of the War Minister, Montero, a mistrusted
member of the Ribiera Government, but difficult to
get rid of at once. He was not to know anything of it
till the troops under Barrios's command had the new
rifle in their hands. The President-Dictator, whose
position was very difficult, was alone in the secret.

"How funny!" commented Martin's sister and con-
fidante; to which the brother, with an air of best Pari-
sian blague, had retorted:

"It's immense! The idea of that Chief of the State
engaged, with the help of private citizens, in digging a
mine under his own indispensable War Minister. No!
We are unapproachable!" And he laughed immoder-
ately.

Afterwards his sister was surprised at the earnestness
and ability he displayed in carrying out his mission,
which circumstances made delicate, and his want of
special knowledge rendered difficult. She had never
seen Martin take so much trouble about anything in his
whole life.

"It aniuses me," he had explained, briefly. "I am
beset by a lot of swindlers trying to sell all sorts of gas-
pipe weapons. They are charming; they invite me to
expensive luncheons; I keep up their hopes; it's ex-
tremely entertaining. Meanwhile, the real affair is
being carried through in quite another quarter/^

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THE ISABELS 155

When the business was concluded he declared sud-
denly his intention of seeing the precious consignment
delivered safely in Sulaco. The whole burlesque busi-
ness, he thought, was worth following up to the end.
He mumbled his excuses, tugging at his golden beard,
before the acute yoimg lady who (after the first wide
stare of astonishment) looked at him with narrowed
eyes, and pronounced slowly —

" I believe you want to see Antonia."

"What Antonia?" asked the Costaguana boule-
vardier, in a vexed and disdainful tone. He shrugged
his shoulders, and spim round on his heel. His sister
called out after him joyously —

"The Antonia you used to know when she wore her
hair in two plaits down her back."

He had known her some eight years since, shortly be-
fore the Avellanos had left Europe for good, as a tall
girl of sixteen, youthfully austere, and of a character
already so formed that she ventured to treat slightingly
his pose of disabused wisdom. On one occasion, as
though she had lost all patience, she flew out at him
about the aimlessness of his Ufe and the levity of his
opinions. He was twenty then, an only son, spoiled by
his adoring family. This attack disconcerted him so
greatly that he had faltered in his affectation of amused
superiority before that insignificant chit of a school-girl.
But the impression left was so strong that ever since all
the girl friends of his sisters recalled to him Antonia
Avellanos by some faint resemblance, or by the great
force of contrast. It was, he told himself, like a
ridiculous fatality. And, of course, in the news the
Decouds received regularly from Costaguana, the
name of their friends, the Avellanos, cropped up fre-
quently — the arrest and the abominable treatment of
the ex-Minister, the dangers and hardships endured by

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156 NOSTROMO

the famfly, its withdrawal in poverty to Sulaco, the
death of the mother.

The Monterist pronuneiamento had taken place be-
fore Martin Decoud reached Costaguana. He came
out in a roundabout way, through Magellan's Straits by
the' main line and the West Coast Service of the O.S.N.
Company. His precious consignment arrived just in
time to convert the first feelings of consternation into a
mood of hope and resolution. Publicly he was made
much of by the familias principales. Privately Don
Jose, still shaken and weak, embraced him with tears
in his eyes.

"You have come out yourself! No less could be ex-
pected from a Decoud. Alas ! our worst fears have been
realized," he moaned, affectionately. And again he
hugged his god-son. This was indeed the time for men
of intellect and conscience to rally round the endangered
cause.

It was then that Martin Decoud, the adopted child of
Western Europe, felt the absolute change of atmos-
phere. He submitted to being embraced and talked to
without a word. He was moved in spite of himself by
that note of passion and sorrow imknown on the more
refined stage of European politics. But when the tall
Antonia, advancing with her light step in the dimness
of the big bare Sala of the Avellanos house, offered him
her hand (in her emancipated way), and murmured, "I
am glad to see you here, Don Martin,'* he felt how im-
possible it would be to tell these two people that he had
intended to go away by the next month's packet. Don
Jose, meantime, continued his praises. Every acces-
sion added to public confidence, and, besides, what an
example to the young men at home from the brilliant
defender of the country's regeneration, the worthy ex-
pounder of the party's political faith before the world I

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THE ISABELS 167

Everybody had read the magnificent article in the
famous Parisian Review. The world was now in-
formed: and the author's appearance at this moment
was like a public act of faith. Young Decoud felt over*
come by a feeling of impatient confusion. His plan had
been to return by way of the United States through
California, visit Yellowstone Park, see Chicago,
Niagara, have a look at Canada, perhaps make a short
stay in New York, a longer one in Newport, use his
letters of introduction. The pressure of Antonia's hand
was so frank, the tone of her voice was so imexpectedly
unchanged in its approving warmth, that all he found to
say after his low bow was —

"I am inexpressibly grateful for your welcome; but
why need a man be thanked for returning to his native
country? I am sure Dofla Antonia does not think so."

"Certainly not, sefior," she said, with that perfectly
caJm openness of manner which characterized all her
utterances. "But when he returns, as you return, one
may be glad — for the sake of both."

Martin Decoud said nothing of his plans. He not
only never breathed a word of them to any one, but only
a fortnight later asked the mistress of the Casa Gould
(where he had of course obtained admission at once),
leaning forward in his chair with an air of well-bred
familiarity, whether she could not detect in him that
day a marked change — ^an air, he explained, of more
excellent gravity. At this Mrs. Gould turned her face
full towards him with the silent inquiry of slightly
widened eyes and the merest ghost of a smile, an
habitual movement with her, which was very fascinat-
ing to men by something subtly devoted, finely self-
forgetful in its lively readiness of attention. Because,
Decoud continued imperturbably, he felt no longer
an idle cumberer of the earth. She was, he assured

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158 NOSTROMO

her, actually beholding at that moment the Journalist
of Sulaco. At once Mrs. Gould glanced towards An-
tonia, posed upright in the corner of a high, straight-
backed Spanish sofa, a large black fan waving slowly
against the curves of her fine figure, the tips of crossed
feet peeping from under the hem of the black skirt.
Decoud's eyes also remained fixed there, while in an
undertone he added that Miss Avellanos was quite
aware of his new and unexpected vocation, which in
Costaguana was generally the speciality of half-
educated negroes and wholly penniless lawyers. Then»
confronting with a sort of urbane effrontery Mrs.
Gould's gaze, now turned sympathetically upon him-
self, he breathed out the words, "Pro Patria!"

What had happened was that he had all at once
yielded to Don Jose's pressing entreaties to take the
direction of a newspaper that would "voice the aspira-
tions of the province." It had been Don Jose's old and
cherished idea. The necessary plant (on a modest
scale) and a large consignment of paper had been re-
ceived from America some time before; the right man
alone was wanted. Even Seiior Moraga in Sta. Marta
had not been able to find one, and the matter was now
becoming pressing; some organ was absolutely needed
to counteract the effect of the lies disseminated by the
Monterist press: the atrocious calumnies, the appeals
to the people calling upon them to rise with their knives
in their hands and put an end once for all to the Blancos,
to these Gothic remnants, to these sinister mummies,
these impotent paraliticos, who plotted with foreigners
for the surrender of the lands and the slavery of the
people.

The clamour of this Negro Liberalism frightened
Seiior Avellanos. A newspaper was the only remedy.
And now that the right man had been found in Decoudi

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THE ISABELS 159

great black letters appeared painted between the win-
dows above the arcaded ground floor of a house on the
Plaza. It was next to Anzarii's great emporium of
boots, silks, ironware, muslins, wooden toys, tiny silver
arms, legs, heads, hearts (for ex-voto offerings), rosaries,
champagne, women's hats, patent medicines, even a few
dusty books in paper covers and mostly in the French
language. The big black letters formed the words,
"Offices of the Porvenir.^^ From these offices a single
folded sheet of Martin's journalism issued three times a
week; and the sleek yellow Anzani prowling in a suit of
ample black and carpet slippers, before the many doors
of his establishment, greeted by a deep, side-long incli-
nation of his body the Journalist of Sulaco going to and
fro on the business of his august calling.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Pebhaps it was in the exercise of his calling that he
!iad come to see the troops depart. The Porvenir of the
^lay after next would no doubt relate the event, but its
r»ditor, leaning his side against the landau, seemed to
^ook at nothing. The front rank of the company of
Infantry drawn up three deep across the shore end of the
jetty when pressed too close would bring their bayonets
to the charge ferociously, with pn awful rattle; and then
the crowd of spectators swayed back bodily, even under
the noses of the big white mules. Notwithstanding the
great multitude there was only a low, muttering noise;
the dust hung in a brown haze, in which the horsemen,
wedged in the throng here and there, towered from the
hips upwards, gazing all one way over the heads. Al-
most every one of them had mounted a friend, who
steadied himself with both hands grasping his shoulders
from behind; and the rims of their hats touching, made
like one disc sustaining the cones of two pointed crowns
with a double face underneath. A hoarse mozo would
bawl out something to an acquaintance in the ranks, or
a woman would shriek suddenly the word Adios I
followed by the Christian name of a man.

General Barrios, in a shabby blue tunic and white
peg-top trousers falling upon strange red boots, kept his
head uncovered and stooped slightly, propping himself
up with a thick stick. No! He had earned enough
military glory to satiate any man, he insisted to Mrs.
Gould, trying at the same time to put an air of gallantry
into his attitude. A few jetty hairs hung sparsely from

160

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THE ISABELS 161

his upper lip, he had a salient nose, a thin, long jaw, and
a blade silk patch over one eye. BUs other eye, small
and deepHset, twinkled erraticaUy in all directions,
aimlessly affable. The few European spectators, all
men, who had naturally drifted into the neighbourhood
of the Gould carriage, betrayed by the solenmity of their
faces their impression that the general must have had too
much punch (Swedish punch, imported in bottles by
Anzani) at the Amarilla Club before he had started with
his Staff on a furious ride to the harbour. But Mrs.
Gould bent forward, self-possessed, and declared her
conviction that still more glory awaited the general in
the near future.

"Seiiora!'* he remonstrated, with great feeling, "in
the name of God, reflect! How can there be any glory
for a man like me in overcoming that bald-headed
emhustero with the dyed moustaches?"

Pablo Ignacio Barrios, son of a village alcade, general
of division, conunanding in chief the Occidental Mili-
tary district, did not frequent the higher society of the
town. He preferred the unceremonious gatherings of
men where he could tell jaguar-hunt stories, boast of
his powers with the lasso, with which he could perform
extremely difficult feats of the sort "no married man
should attempt," as the saying goes amongst the
llaneros; relate tales of extraordinary night rides, en-
counters with wild bulls, struggles with crocodiles,
adventures in the great forests, crossings of swollen
rivers. And it was not mere boastfulness that prompted
the general's reminiscences, but a genuine love of that
wild life which he had led in his young days before he
turned his back for ever on the thatched roof of the
parental tolderia in the woods. Wandering away as
far as Mexico he had fought against the French by the
side (as he said) of Juarez, and was the only military

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162 NOSTROMO

man of Costaguana who had ever encountered European
troops in the field. That fact shed a great lustre upon
his name till it became eclipsed by the rising star of
Montero. All his life he had been an inveterate gam^
bier. He alluded himself quite openly to the current
story how once, during some campaign (when in com-
mand of a brigade), he had gambled away his horses,
pistols, and accoutrements, to the very epaulettes,
playing monte with his colonels the night before the
battle. Finally, he had sent under escort his sword
(a presentation sword, with a gold hilt) to the town in
the rear of his position to be immediately pledged for
five hundred pesetas with a sleepy and frightened
shop-keeper. By daybreak he had lost the last of that
money, too, when his only remark, as he rose calmly,
was, "Now let us go and fight to the death." From
that time he had become aware that a general could
lead his troops into battle very well with a simple stick
in his hand. "It has been my custom ever since," he
would say.

He was always overwhelmed with debts; even during
the periods of splendour in his varied fortunes of a
Costaguana general, when he held high military com-
mands, his gold-laced uniforms were almost always in
pawn with some tradesman. And at last, to avoid the
incessant diflSculties of costume caused by the anxious
lenders, he had assumed a disdain of military trappings,
an eccentric fashion of shabby old tunics, which had
become like a second nature. But the faction Barrios
joined needed to fear no political betrayal. He was
too much of a real soldier for the ignoble traffic of buy-
ing and selling victories. A member of the foreign
diplomatic body in Sta. Marta had once passed a
judgment upon him: "Barrios is a man of perfect
honesty and even of some talent for war, mais il manque

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THE ISABELS 163

dc tenuc,** After the triumph of the Ribierists he had
obtained the reputedly lucrative Occidental command,
mainly through the exertions of his creditors (the Sta.
Marta shopkeepers, all great jx)liticians), who moved
heaven and earth in his interest publicly, and privately
besieged Senor Moraga, the influential agent of the
San Tome mine, with the exaggerated lamentations
that if the general were passed over, "We shall all be
ruined." An incidental but favourable mention of his
name in Mr. Gould senior's long correspondence with
his son had something to do with Jiis appointment, too;
but most of all imdoubtedly his established political
honesty. No one questioned the personal bravery of
the Tiger-killer, as the populace called him. He was,
however, said to be imlucky in the field — ^but this was
to be the beginning of an era of peace. The soldiers
liked him for his humane temper, which was like a
strange and precious flower unexpectedly blooming on
the hotbed of corrupt revolutions; and when he rode
slowly through the streets during some military display,
the contemptuous good humour of his solitary eye roam-
ing over the crowds extorted the acclamations of the
populace. The women of that class especially seemed
positively fascinated by the long drooping nose, the
peaked chin, the heavy lower lip, the black silk eye-
patch and band slanting rakishly over the forehead.
His high rank always procured an audience of Ca-
balleros for his sporting stories, which he detailed very
well with a simple, grave enjoyment. As to the society
of ladies, it was irksome by the restraints it imposed
without any equivalent, as far as he could see. He had
not, perhaps, spoken three times on the whole to Mrs.
Gould since he had taken up his high command; but he
had observed her frequently riding with the Sefior
Administrador, and had pronounced that there was

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164 NOSTROMO

more sense in her little bridle-hand than in all the fe-
male heads in Sulaco. His impulse had been to be very
civil on parting to a woman who did not wobble in the
saddle, and happened to be the wife of a personality
very important to a man always short of money. He
even pushed his attentions so far as to desire the aide-de-
camp at his side (a thick-set, short captain with a Tar-
tar physiognomy) to bring along a corporal with a file of
men in front of the carriage, lest the crowd in its back-
ward surges should "incommode the mules of the
senora." Then, turning to the small knot of silent
Europeans looking on within earshot, he raised his
voice protectingly —

"Seiiores, have no apprehension. Go on quietly
making your Ferro Carril — ^your railways, your tele-
graphs. Your There's enough wealth in Costa-
guana to pay for everything — or else you would not be
here. Ha! ha! Don't mind this little picardia of my
friend Montero. In a little while you shall behold his
dyed moustaches through the bars of a strong wooden
cage. Si, sefiores! Fear nothing, develop the coimtry,
work, work!"

The little group of engineers received this exhortation
without a word, and after waving his hand at them
loftily, he addressed himself again to Mrs. Gould —

" That is what Don Jos6 says we must do. Be enter-
prising! Work! Grow rich! To put Montero in a
cage is my work; and when that insignificant piece of
business is done, then, as Don Jos6 wishes us, we shall
grow rich, one and all, like so many Englishmen, be-
cause it is money that saves a country, and "

But a young officer in a very new uniform, hurrying
up from the direction of the jetty, interrupted his
interpretation of Senor Avellanos's ideals. The general
made a movement of impatience; the other went on

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THE ISABELS 165

talking to him insistently, with an air of respect. The
horses of the Staff had been embarked, the steamer's
gig was awaiting the general at the boat steps; and
Barrios, after a fierce stare of his one eye, began to take
leave. Don Jose roused himself for an appropriate
phrase pronounced mechanically. The terrible strain
of hope and fear was telling on him, and he seemed to
husband the last sparks of his fire for those oratorical
efforts of which even the distant Europe was to hear.
Antonia, her red hps firmly closed, averted her head
behind the raised fan; and young Decoud, though he
felt the girl's eyes upon him, gazed away persistently,
hooked on his elbow, with a scornful and complete de-
tachment. Mrs. Gould heroically concealed her dis-
may at the appearance of men and events so remote
from her racial conventions, dismay too deep to be
uttered in words even to her husband. She understood
his voiceless reserve better now. Their confidential
intercourse fell, not in moments of privacy, but pre-
cisely in public, when the quick meeting of their glances
would comment upon some fresh turn of events. She
had gone to his school of uncompromising silence, the
only one possible, since so much that seemed shocking,
weird, and grotesque in the working out of their pur-
poses had to be accepted as normal in this country.
Decidedly, the stately Antonia looked more mature and
infinitely calm; but she would never have known how
to reconcile the sudden sinkings of her heart with an
amiable mobiUty of expression.

Mrs. Gould smiled a good-bye at Barrios, nodded
round to the Europeans (who raised their hats si-
multaneously) with an engaging invitation, "I hope to
see you all presently, at home"; then said nervously to
Decoud, "Get in, Don Martin," and heard him mutter
to himself in French, as he opened the carriage door,

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166 NOSTROMO

"Ze sort en est jetS/^ She heard him with a sort of
exasperation. Nobody ought to have known better
than himself that the first cast of dice had been already
thrown long ago in a most desperate game. Distant
acclamations, words of command yelled out, and a roll
of drums on the jetty greeted the departing general.
Something like a slight f aintness came over her, and she
looked blankly at Antonia's still face, wondering what
would happen to Charley if that absurd man failed.
*'A la casuy IgnaciOy* she cried at the motionless broad
back of the coachman, who gathered the reins without
haste, mumbling to himself under his breath, "Si,
la casa. Si, si nina.^'

The carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft track, the
shadows fell long on the dusty little plain interspersed
with dark bushes, moimds of tumed-up earth, low
wooden buildings with iron roofs of the Railway
Company; |the sparse row of telegraph poles strode
obliquely clear of the town, bearing a single, almost in-
visible wire far into the great campo — like a slender,
vibrating feeler of that progress waiting outside for a
moment of peace to enter and twine itself about the
weary he^rt of the land.j

The cafS window of the Albergo d'ltalia Una was full
of sunburnt, whiskered faces of railway men. But at
the other end of the house, the end of the Signori
Inglesi, old Giorgio, at the door with one of his girls on
each side, bared his bushy head, as white as the 3nows of
Higuerota. Mrs. Gould stopped the carriage. She
sgldo g^ failed to speak to her protSgS; moreover, the
excitement, the heat, and the dust had made her
thirsty. She asked for a glass of water. Giorgio sent
the children indoors for it, and approached with pleasure
expressed in his whole rugged countenance. It was not
pftfip that he had occasion to see his benefactress.

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THE ISABELS 167

who was also an Englishwoman — another title to his
regard. He offered some excuses for his wife. It
was a bad day with her; her oppressions — ^he tapped his
own broad chest. She could not move from her chair
that day.

Decoud, ensconced in the comer of his seat, observed
gloomily Mrs. Gould's old revolutionist, then, offhand —

"Well, and what do you think of it all, Garibaldino? "

Old Giorgio, looking at him with some curiosity, said
civilly that the troops had marched very well. One-
eyed Barrios arid his officers had done wonders with the
recruits in a short time. Those Indios, only caught the
other day, had gone swinging past in double quick time,
like bersaglieri; they looked well fed, too, and had whole
uniforms. "Uniforms!" he repeated with a half-smile
of pity. A look of grim retrospect stole over his pierc-
ing, steady eyes. It had been otherwise in his time
when men fought against tyranny, in the forests of
Brazil, or on the plains of Uruguay, starving on half-
rj^w beef without salt, half naked, with often only a
i^^e tied to a stick for a weapon. "And yet we
'used to prevail against the oppressor," he concluded,
proudly.

His animation fell; the slight gesture of his hand
expressed discouragement; but he added that he had
asked one of the sergeants to show him the new rifle.
There was no such weapon in his fighting days; and if
Barrios could not —

"Yes, yes," broke in Don Jose, almost trembling
with eagerness. "We are safe. The good Seiior Viola
is a man of experience. Extremely deadly — ^is it not
so? You have accomplished your mission admirably,
my dear Martin."

Decoud, lolling back moodily, contemplated old
Viola,

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168 NOSTROMO

"Ah! Yes. A man of experience. But who are
you for, really, in your heart? "

Mrs. Gould leaned over to the children. Linda had
brought out a glass of water on a tray, with extreme
care; Giselle presented her with a bunch of flowers
gathered hastily.

"For the people," declared old Viola, sternly.

"We are all for the people — in the end."

"Yes," muttered old Viola, savagely. "And mean-
time they fight for you. Blind. Esclavos!"

At that moment young Scarfe of the railway staflF
emerged from the door of the part reserved for the
Signori Inglesi. He had come down to headquarters
from somewhere up the line on a light engine, and had
had just time to get a bath and change his clothes. He
was a nice boy, and Mrs. Gould welcomed him.

"It's a delightful surprise to see you, Mrs. Gould.
I've just come down. Usual luck. Missed everything,
of course. This show is just over, and I hear there has
been a great dance at Don Juste Lopez's last night. Is
it true?"

"The young patricians," Decoud began suddenly in
his precise English, "have indeed been dancing before
they started off to the war with the Great Pompey."

Yoimg Scarfe stared, astounded. "You haven't
met before," Mrs. Gould intervened. "Mr. Decoud —
Mr. Scarfe."

"Ah! But we are not going to Pharsalia," pro-
tested Don Jose, with nervous haste, also in English.
"You should not jest like this, Martin."

Antonia's breast rose and fell with a deeper breath.
The young engineer was utterly in the dark. "Great
what? " he muttered, vaguely.

"Luckily, Montero is not a Caesar," Decoud con-
tinued. "Not the two Monteros put together woultj

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THE ISABELS 169

make a decent parody of a Caesar." He crossed his
arms on his breast, looking at Sefior Avellanos, who
had returned to his immobility. "It is only you, Don
Jose, who are a genuine old Roman — ^vir Romanus —
eloquent and inflexible."

Since he had heard the name of Montero pronounced,
young Scarf e had been eager to express his simple feel-
ings. In a loud and youthful tone he hoped that this
Montero was going to be licked once for all and done/
with. There was no saying what would happen to the
railway if the revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps
it would have to be abandoned. It would not be the
first railway gone to pot in Costaguana. "You know,
it's one of their so-called national things," he ran on,
wrinkling up his nose as if the word had a suspicious
flavour to his profound experience of South American
affairs. And, of course, he chatted with animation, it
had been such an immense piece of luck for him at his
age to get appointed on the staff "of a big thing like
that — don't you know." It would give him the pull
over a lot of diaps all through life, he asserted. " There-^
fore — down with Montero! Mrs. Gould." His artless
grin disappeared slowly before the unanimous gravity
of the faces turned upon him from the carriage; only
that "old chap," Don Jose, presenting a motionless,
waxy profile, stared straight on as if deaf. Scarfe did
not know the Avellanos very well. They did not give
balls, and Antonia never appeared at a ground-floor
window, as some other yoimg ladies used to do at-
tended by elder women, to chat with the caballeros on
horseback in the Calle. The stares of these Creoles did
not matter much; but what on earth had come to Mrs.
Gould? She said, "Go on, Ignacio," and gave him a
slow inclination of the head. He heard a short laugh
from that roimd-faced, Frenchified fellow. He coloured

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170 NOSTROMO

up to the eyes, and stared at Giorgio Viola, who had
fallen back with the children, hat in hand.

"I shall want a horse presently," he said with some
asperity to the old man.

"Si, senor. There are plenty of horses^" murmured
the Garibaldino, smoothing absently, with his brown
hands, the two heads, one dark with bronze glints, the
other fair with a coppery ripple, of the two girls by his
side. The returning stream of sightseers raised a
great dust on the road. Horsemen noticed the group.
"Go to your mother," he said. "They are growing up
as I am growing older, and there is nobody "

He looked at the young engineer and stopped, as if

awakened from a dream; then, folding his arms on his

breast, took up his usual position, leaning back in the

\ doorway with an upward glance fastened on the white

shoulder of Higuerota far away.

In the carriage Martin Decoud, shifting his position
as though he could not make himself comfortable, mut-
tered as he swayed towards Antonia, "I suppose you
hate me." Then in a loud voice he began to con-
gratulate Don Jose upon all the engineers being con-
vinced Ribierists. The interest of all those foreigners
was gratifying. "You have heard this one. He is an
. enlightened well-wisher. It is pleasant to think that
the prosperity of Costaguana is of some use to the
world."

"He is very young," Mrs. Gould remarked, quietly.

"And so very wise for his age," retorted Decoud.
"But here we have the naked truth from the mouth of
that child. You are right, Don Jose. The natural
treasures of Costaguana are of importance to the pro-
, gressive Europe represented by this youth, just as three
hundred years ago the wealth of our Spanish fathers
was a serious object to the rest of Europe — as repre-

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THE ISABELS 171

sented by the bold buccaneers. There is a curse of
futility upon our character: Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza, chivalry and materialism, high-sounding senti-
ments and a supine morality, violent efforts for an idea
and a sullen acquiescence in every form of corruption.
We convulsed a continent for our independence only to
become the passive prey of a democratic parody, the
helpless victims of scoundrels and cut-throats, our
institutions a mockery, our laws a farce — a Guzman
Bento our master! And we have sunk so low that when
a man like you has awakened our conscience, a stupid
barbarian of a Montero — Great Heavens! a Montero! —
becomes a deadly danger, and an ignorant, boastful
Indio, like Barrios, is our defender."

But Don Jose, disregarding the general indictment as
though he had not heard a word of it, took up the de-
fence of Barrios. The man was competent enough for
his special task in the plan of campaign. It consisted
in an offensive movement, with Cayta as base, upon the
flank of the Revolutionist forces advancing from the
south against Sta. Marta, which was covered by another
army with the President-Dictator in its midst. Don
Jose became quite animated with a great flow of speech,
bending forward anxiously under the steady eyes of his
daughter. Decoud, as if silenced by so much ardour,
did not make a sound. The bells of the city were strik-
ing the hour of Oracion when the carriage rolled under
the old gateway facing the harbour like a shapeless
monument of leaves and stones. The rumble of wheels
under the sonorous arch was traversed by a strange,
piercing shriek, and Decoud, from his back seat, had a
view of the people behind the carriage trudging along
the road outside, all turning their heads, in sombreros
and rebozos, ^ look at a locomotive which rolled
quickly out of sight behind Giorgio Viola's house, under

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172 NOSTROMO

a white trail of steam that seemed to vanish in the
breathless, hysterically prolonged scream of warlike
trimnph. And it was all like a fleeting vision, the
shrieking ghost of a railway engine fleeing across the
frame of the archway, behind the startled movement
of the people streaming back from a military spectacle
with silent footsteps on the dust of the road. It was a
material train returning from the Campo to the pali-
saded yards. The empty cars rolled lightly on the
single track; there was no nunble of wheels, no tremor
of the ground. The engine-driver, running past the
Casa Viola with the salute of an uplifted arm, checked
his speed smartly before entering the yard;faiid when
the ear-splitting screech of the steam-whistle for the
brakes had stopped, a series of hard, battering shodLs,
mingled with the clanking of chain-couplings, made a
tumult of blows and shaken fetters under the vault of
the gatel

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CHAPTER FIVE

The Gould carriage was the first to return from the
harbour to the empty town. On the ancient pavement,
laid out in patterns, sunk into ruts and holes, the portly
Ignacio, mindful of the springs of the Parisian-built
landau, had pulled up to a walk, and Decoud in his
comer contemplated moodily the inner aspect of the
gate. The squat turreted sides held up between them
a mass of masonry with bimches of grass growing at the ^
top, and a grey, heavily scrolled, armorial shield of stone
above the apex of the arch with the arms of Spain nearly
smoothed out as if in readiness for some new device
typical of the impending progress.

The explosive noise of the railway trucks seemed to
augment Decoud's irritation. He muttered something
to himself, then began to talk aloud in curt, angry
phrases thrown at the silence of the two women. They
did not look at him at all; while Don Jose, with his semi-
translucent, waxy complexion, overshadowed by the
soft grey hat, swayed a little to the jolts of the carriage
by the side of Mrs. Gould.

"This sound puts a new edge on a very old
truth."

Decoud spoke in French, perhaps because of Ignacio
on the box above him; the old coachman, with his broad
back filling a short, silver-braided jacket, had a big /
pair of ears, whose thick rims stood well away from his
cropped head.

"Yes, the noise outside the city wall is new, but the
principle is old."

179

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174 NOSTROMO

He ruminated his discontent for a while, then began
afresh with a sidelong glance at Antonia —

"No, but just imagine our forefathers in morions and
corselets drawn up outside this gate, and a band of
adventurers just landed from their ships in the harbour
there. Thieves, of course. Speculators, too. Their
expeditions, each one, were the speculations of grave
and reverend persons in England. That is history, as
that absurd sailor Mitchell is always saying."

^^•Mitchell's arrangements for the embarkation of the
troops were excellent!" exclaimed Don Jose.

"That! — that! oh, that's really the work of that
Genoese seaman! But to return to my noises; there
used to be in the old days the sound of trumpets outside
that gate. War trumpets! I'm sure they were trum-
pets. I have read somewhere that Drake, who was
the greatest of these men, used to dine alone in his
cabin on board ship to the sound of trumpets. In
those days this town was full of wealth. Those men
came to take it. Now the whole land is like a treasure-
house, and all these people are breaking into it, whilst
we are cutting each other's throats. The only thing
that keeps them out is mutual jealousy. But they'll
come to an agreement some day — and by the time we've
settled our quarrels and become decent and honourable,
there'll be nothing left for us. It has always been the
same. We are a wonderful people, but it has always
been our fate to be" — he did not say "robbed," but
added, after a pause — "exploited!"

Mrs. Gould said, "Oh, this is unjust!" And Antonia
interjected, "Don't answer him, Emilia. He is at-
tacking me."

"You surely do not think I was attacking Don Car-
los!" Decoud answered.

And then the carriage stopped before the door of the

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THE ISABELS 176

Casa Gould. The young man offered his hand to the
. ladies. They went in first together; Don Jose walked
by the side of Deeoud, and the gouty old porter tottered
after them with some light wraps on his arm.

Don Jose slipped his hand under the arm of the
journalist of Sulaeo.

"The Porvenir must have a long and confident article
upon Barrios and the irresistibleness of his army of
Cayta! The moral effect should be kept up in the
country. We must cable encouraging extracts to
Europe and the United States to maintain a favour-
able impression abroad."

Deeoud muttered, "Oh, yes, we must comfort our
friends, the speculators."

The long open gallery was in shadow, with its screen
of plants in vases along the balustrade, holding out
motionless blossoms, and all the glass doors of the
reception-rooms thrown open. A jingle of spurs died
out at the further end.

Basilio, standing aside against the wall, said in a soft
tone to the passing ladies, "The Sefior Administrador is
just back from the moimtain."

In the great sala, with its groups of ancient Spanish
and modem European furniture making as if different /
centres under the high white spread of the ceiling, the
silver and poiceiain of the tea-service gleamed among
a cluster of dwarf chairs, like a bit of a lady*s
boudoir, putting in a note of feminine and intimate
delicacy.

Don Jose in his rocking-chair placed his hat on his
lap, and Deeoud walked up and down the whole length
of the room, passing between tables loaded with knick-
knacks and almost disappearing behind the high backs
of leathern sofas. He was thinking of the angry face of
Antonia; he was confident that he would make his

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176 NOSTROMO

peace with her. He had not stayed in Sulaco to quarrel
with Antonia.

Martin Deeoud was angry with himself. All he saw
and heard going on aroimd him exasperated the pre-
conceived views of his European civilization. To
contemplate revolutions from the distance of the
Parisian Boulevards was quite another matter. Here
on the spot it was not possible to dismiss their tragic
comedy with the expression, *' Quelle farce /"

The reality of the political action, such as it was,
seemed closer, and acquired poignancy by Antonia's
belief in the cause. Its crudeness hurt his feelings. He
was surprised at his own sensitiveness.

" I suppose I am more of a Costaguanero than I would
have believed possible," he thought to himself.

His disdain grew like a reaction of his scepticism
against the action into which he was forced by his
infatuation for Antonia. He soothed himself by saying
he was not a patriot, but a lover.

The ladies came in bareheaded, and Mrs. Gould sank
low before the little tea-table. Antonia took up her
usual place at the reception hour — the corner of a
leathern couch, with a rigid grace in her pose and a fan
in her hand. Deeoud, swerving from the straight line of
his march, came to lean over the high back of her seat.

For a long time he talked into her ear from behind,
softly, with a half smile and an air of apologetic famili-
arity. Her fan lay half grasped on her knees. She
never looked at him. His rapid utterance grew more
and more insistent and caressing. At last he ventured
a slight laugh.

"No, really. You must forgive me. One must be
serious sometimes." He paused. She turned her
head a little; her blue eyes glided slowly towards him,
slightly upwards, mollified and questioning.

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THE ISABELS 177

** You can't think I am serious when I call Montero a
grarC bestia every second day m the Porvenir ? That
is not a serious occupation. No occupation is serious,^
not even when a bullet through the heart is the penalty
of failure!"

Her hand closed firmly on her fan.

"Some reason, you understand, I mean some sense,
may creep into tiiinking; some glimpse of truth. I
mean some effective truth, for which there is no room
in politics or journalism. I happen to have said what
I thought. And you are angry! If you do me the
kindness to think a little you will see that I spoke like a
patriot."

She opened her red Kps for the first time, not un-
kindly.

" Yes, but you never see the aim. Men must be used
as they are. I suppose nobody is really disinterested,^
unless, perhaps, you, Don Martin."

" God forbid ! It's the last thing I should like you to
believe of me." He spoke lightly, and paused.

She began to fan herself with a slow movement with-
out raising her hand. After a time he whispered pas-
sionately —

"Antonia!"

She smiled, and extended her hand after the English
manner towards Charles Gould, who was bowing before
her; while Decoud, with his elbows spread on the back
of the sofa, dropped his eyes and murmured, ^^Bonjour.^*

The Senor Administrador of the San Tom6 mine bent
over his wife for a moment. They exchanged a few
words, of which only the phrase, "The greatest enthu-
siasm," pronounced by Mrs. Gould, could be heard.

"Yes," Decoud began in a murmur. "Even he!"

"This is sheer calumny," said Antonia, not very
severely.

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178 NOSTROMO

^ " You just ask him to throw his mine into the melting-
pot for the great cause," Deeoud whispered.

Don Jose had raised his voice. He rubbed his hands
cheerily. The excellent aspect of the troops and the
great quantity of new deadly rifles on the shoidders of
those brave men seemed to fill him with an ecstatic
confidence.

Charles Gould, very tall and thin before his chair,
listened, but nothing could be discovered in his face
except a kind and deferential attention.
^ Meantime, Antonia had risen, and, crossing the
room, stood looking out of one of the three long windows
giving on the street. Deeoud followed her. The
window was thrown open, and he leaned against the
thickness of the wall. The long folds of the damask
curtain, falling straight from the broad brass cornice,
hid him partly from the room. He folded his arms on
his breast, and looked steadily at Antonia's profile.

The people returning from the harbour filled the
pavements; the shuffle of sandals and a low murmur of
voices ascended to the window. Now and then a coach
rolled slowly along the disjointed roadway of the Calle
de la Constitucion. There were not many private
carriages in Sulaco; at the most crowded hour on the
Alameda they could be counted with one glance of the
eye. The great family arks swayed on high leathern
springs, full of pretty powdered faces in which the eyes
looked intensely alive and black. And first Don Juste
Lopez, the President of the Provincial Assembly,
passed with his three lovely daughters, solemn in a
black frock-coat and stiflF white tie, as when directing a
debate from a high tribune. Though they all raised
their eyes, Antonia did not make the usual greeting
gesture of a fluttered hand, and they affected not to see
the two young people, Costaguaneros with European

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THE ISABELS 179

manners, whose eccentricities were discussed behind the
barred windows of the first families in Sulaco. And
then the widowed Senora Gavilaso de Valdes rolled by,
handsome and dignified, in a great machine in which
she used to travel to and from her coimtry house, sur-
rounded by an armed retinue in leather suits and big
sombreros, with carbines at the bows of their saddles.
She was a woman of most distinguished family, proud,
rich, and kind-hearted. Her second son, Jaime, had
just gone off on the Staff of Barrios. The eldest, a
worthless fellow of a moody disposition, filled Sulaco
with the noise of his dissipations, and gambled heavily
at the club. The two youngest boys, with yellow Ri-
bierist cockades in their caps, sat on the front seat.
She, too, affected not to see the Senor Decoud talking
publicly with Antonia in defiance of every convention.
And he not even her novio as far as the world knew!
Though, even in that case, it would have been scandal
enough. But the dignified old lady, respected and
admired by the first families, would have been still
more shocked if she could have heard the words they
were exchanging.

"Did you say I lost sight of the aim? I have only
one aim in the world."

She made an almost imperceptible negative move-
ment of her head, still staring across the street at the
Avellanos's house, grey, marked with decay, and with
iron bars like a prison.

"And it would be so easy of attainment," he con-
tinued, "this aim which, whether knowingly or not, I
have always had in my heart — ever since the day when
you snubbed me so horribly once in Paris, you re-
member."

A slight smile seemed to move the comer of the lip
that was on his side.

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180 NOSTROMO

** You know you were a very terrible person, a sort of
Charlotte Corday in a schoolgirl's dress; a ferocious
patriot. I suppose you would have stuck a knife into
Guzman Bento?'*

She interrupted him. "You do me too much
honour."

"At any rate," he said, changing suddenly to a tone of
bitter levity, "you would have sent me to stab him
without compimction."

"Ah, par exemple I " she murmured in a shocked tone

"Well," he argued, mockingly, "you do keep me here
writing deadly nonsense. Deadly to me! It has al-
ready killed my self-respect. And you may imagine,"
he continued, his tone passing into light banter, "that
Montero, should he be successful, would get even with
me in the only way such a brute can get even with a
man of intelligence who condescends to call him a gran*
bestia three times a week. It's a sort of intellectual
death; but there is the other one in the background for
a journalist of my ability."

"If he is successful!" said Antonia, thoughtfully.

"You seem satisfied to see my life hang on a thread,"
Decoud replied, with a broad smile. "And the other
Montero, the 'my trusted brother' of the proclamations,
the guerrillero — haven't I written that he was taking
the guests' overcoats and changing plates in Paris at
our Legation in the intervals of spying on our refugees
there, in the time of Rojas? He will wash out that
sacred truth in blood. In my blood! Why do you
look annoyed? This is simply a bit of the biography of
one of our great tiaen. What do you think he will do to
me? There is a certain convent wall round the comer
of the Plaza, opposite the door of the Bull Ring. You
know? Opposite the door with the inscription, 'Intrada
de la Sombra.' Appropriate, perhaps! That's where

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THE ISABELS 181

the imde of our host gave up his Anglo-South-Ameri-
can soul. And, note, he might have run away. A man
who has fought with weapons may run away. You
might have let me go with Barrios iif you had cared for
me. I would have carried one of those rifles, in which
Don Jose believes, with the greatest satisfaction, in the
ranks of poor peons and Indios, that know nothing
either of reason or politics. The most forlorn hope in
the most forlorn army on earth would have been safer
than that for which you made me stay here. When you
make war you may retreat, but not when you spend
your time in inciting poor ignorant fools to kill and to
die."

His tone remained light, and as if unaware of his
presence she stood motionless, her hands clasped
lightly, the fan hanging down from her interlaced
fingers. He waited for a while, and then —

"I shall go to the wall," he said, with a sort of jocular
desperation.

Even that declaration did not make her look at him.
Her head remained still, her eyes fixed upon the house
of the Avellanos, whose chipped pilasters, broken
cornices, the whole degradation of dignity was hidden -
now by the gathering dusk of the street. In her whole
figure her lips alone moved, forming the words —

"Martin, you will make me cry."

He remained silent for a minute, startled, as if over-
whelmed by a sort of awed happiness, with the hues of
the mocking smile still stiflFened about his mouth, and
incredulous siuprise in his eyes. The value of a sen-yi
tence is in the personahty which utters it, for nothing! /
new can be said by man or woman; and those were the^
last words, it seemed to him, that could ever have been
spoken by Antonia. He had never made it up with
her so completely in all their intercourse of small en-

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182 NOSTROMO

counters; but even before she had time to turn towards
him, which she did slowly with a rigid grace, he had
begun to plead —

"My sister is only waiting to embrace you. My
father is transported with joy. I won't say anything
of my mother! Our mothers were like sisters. There
is the mail-boat for the south next week — ^let us go.
That Moraga is a fool! A man like Montero is
bribed. It's the practice of the coimtry. It's tradi-
tion — it's politics. Read 'Fifty Years of Misrule.'"

"Leave poor papa alone, Don Martin. He be-
lieves "

"I have the greatest tenderness for your father,"
he began, hurriedly. "But I love you, Antonia! And
Moraga has miserably mismanaged this business. Per-
haps your father did, too; I don't know. Montero was
bribeable. Why, I suppose he only wanted his share of
this famous loan for national development. Why
didn't the stupid Sta. Marta people give him a mission
to Europe, or something? He would have taken five
years' salary in advance, and gone on loafing in Paris,
this stupid, ferocious Indio!"

"The man," she said, thoughtfully, and very calm
before this outburst, "was intoxicated with vanity.
We had all the information, not from Moraga only;
from others, too. There was his brother intriguing,
too."

"Oh, yes!" he said. "Of course you know. You
know everything. You read all the correspondence,
you write all the papers — all those State papers
that are inspired here, in this room, in blind deference
to a theory of political purity. Hadn't you Charles
Gould before your eyes? Rey de Sulaco! He and
his mine are the practical demonstration of what
could have been done. Do you think he succeeded

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THE ISABELS 188

by his fidelity to a theory of virtue? And all those
railway people, with their honest work! Of course,
their work is honest! But v/hat if you cannot work
honestly till the thieves are satisfied? Could he not,
a gentleman, have told this Sir John what's-his-name
that Montero had to be bought off — ^he and all his
Negro Liberals hanging on to his gold-laced sleeve?
He ought to have b^en bought off with his own stupid
weight of gold — his weight of gold, I tell you, boots.^
sabre, spurs, cocked hat, and all."

She shook her head slightly. "It was impossible,*'
she murmured. i

" He wanted the whole lot? What? ''

She was facing him now in the deep recess of the
window, very close and motionless. Her lips moved
rapidly. Decoud, leaning his back against the wall,
listened with crossed arms and lowered eyelids. He
drank the tones of her even voice, and watched the
agitated life of her throat, as if waves of emotion had
run from her heart to pass out into the air in her
reasonable words. He also had his aspirations, he
aspired to carry her away out of these deadly futilities
of pronunciamientos and reforms. All this was wrong
— utterly wrong; but she fascinated him, and some-
times the sheer sagacity of a phrase would break the
charm, replace the fascination by a sudden unwilling
thrill of interest. Some women hovered, as it were, on
the threshold of genius, he reflected. They did not
want to know, or think, or understand. Passion stood-
for all that, and he was ready to believe that some start-
lingly profoimd remark, some appreciation of character,
or a judgment upon an event, bordered on the miracu-
lous. In the mature Antonia he could see with an
extraordinary vividness the austere schoolgirl of the
earlier days. She seduced his attention; sometimes he

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184 NOSTROMO

could not restrain a murmur of assent; now and then he
advanced an objection quite seriously. Gradually they
began to argue; the curtain half hid them from the
people in the sala.

Outside it had grown dark. From the deep trench of
shadow between the houses, lit up vaguely by the
glimmer of street lamps, ascended the evening silence
of Sulaco; the silence of a town with few carriages, of
unshod horses, and a softly sandalled population. The
windows of the Casa Gould flung their shining parallelo-
grams upon the house of the Avellanos. Now and then
a shuffle of feet passed below with the pulsating red
glow of a cigarette at the foot of the walls; and the
night air, as if cooled by the snows of Higuerota, re-
freshed their faces.

"We Occidentals," said Martin Decoud, using the
usual term the provincials of Sulaco applied to thenar-
selves, "have been always distinct and separated. As
long as we hold Cayta nothing can reach us. In all our
troubles no army has marched over those mountains.
A revolution in the central provinces isolates us at once.
Look how complete it is now! The news of Barrios'
movement will be cabled to the United States, and only
in that way will it reach Sta. Marta by the cable from
the other seaboard. We have the greatest riches, the
greatest fertility, the purest blood in our great fam-
ilies, the most laborious population. The Occidental
Province should stand alone. The early Federalism
was not bad for us. Then came this union which
Don Henrique Gould resisted. It opened the road to
tyranny; and, ever since, the rest of Costaguana hangs
like a millstone round our necks. The Occidental
territory is large enough to make any man's country.
Look at the mountainaJ Nature itself seems to ciy
to us, * Separate!'*'

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THE ISABELS 185

She made an energetic gesture of negation. A
silence fell.

"Oh, yes, I know it's contrary to the doctrine laid
down in the 'History of Fifty Years' Misrule.' I am
only trying to be sensible. But my sense seems always
to give you cause for oflFence. Have I startled you very
much with this perfectly reasonable aspiration.?"

She shook her head. No, she was not startled, but
the idea shocked her early convictions. Her patriotism
was larger. She had never considered that possibility.

" It may yet be the means of saving some of your con-
victions," he said, prophetically.

She did not answer. She seemed tired. They
leaned side by side on the rail of the httle balcony, very
friendly, having exhausted politics, giving themselves
up to the silent feeling of their nearness, in one of thos^
profound pauses that fall upon the rhythm of passion J
Towards the plaza end of the street the glowing coals
in the brazeros of the market women cooking their
evening meal gleamed red along the edge of the pave-
ment. A man appeared without a sound in the light
of a street lamp, showing the coloured inverted triangle
of his bordered poncho, square on his shoulders, hang-
ing to a point below his knees. From the harbour end
of the Calle a horseman walked his soft-stepping mount,
gleaming silver-grey abreast each lamp under the dark
shape of the rider.

"Behold the illustrious Capataz de Cargadores,"
said Decoud, gently, "coming in all his splendour after
his work is done. The next great man of Sulaco after
Don Carlos Gould. But he is good-natured, and let
me make friends with him."

"Ah, indeed!" said Antonia. "How did you make
friends?"

"A journalist ought to have his finger on the popular

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186 NOSTROMO

pulse, and this man is one of the leaders of the populace.
A journalist ought to know remarkable men — and this
man is remarkable in his way."

"Ah, yes!" said Antonia, thoughtfully. "It is
known that this Italian has a great influence."

The horseman had passed below them, with a gleam
of dim light on the shining broad quarters of the grey

"^ mare, on a bright heavy stirrup, on a long silver spur;
but the short flick of yellowish flame in the dusk was
powerless against the muffled-up mysteriousness of the
dark figure with an invisible face concealed by a great
sombrero.

Decoud and Antonia remained leaning over the
balcony, side by side, touching elbows, with their heads
overhanging the darkness of the street, and the bril-
liantly lighted sala at tkeir backs. This was a tete-a-tete
of extreme impropriety; something of which in the
whole extent of the Republic only the extraordinary
Antonia could be capable — ^the poor, motherless girl,
never accompanied, with a careless father, who had
thought only of making her learned. Even. Decoud
himself seemed to feel that this was as much as he could
expect of having her to himself till — ^till the revolution
was over and he could carry her off to Europe, away
from the endlessness of civil strife, whose folly seemed
even harder to bear than its ignominy. After one
Montero there would be another, the lawlessness of a
populace of all colours and races, barbarism, irre-
mediable tyranny. As the great Liberator Bolivar had
said in the bitterness of his spirit, "America is un-
governable. Those who worked for her independence

* have ploughed the sea." He did not care, he declared
boldly; he seized every opportunity to tell her that
though she had managed to make a Blanco journalist
of him, he was no patriot. First of all, the word had

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THE ISABELS 187

no sense for cultured minds, to whom! the narrowness of )
every belief is odious; and secondly, in connection with
the everlasting troubles of this unhappy country it was
hopelessly besmirched; it had been the cry of dark
barbarism, the cloak of lawlessness, of crimes, of ra-
pacity, of simple thieving.

He was surprised at the warmth of his own utterance.
He had no need to drop his voice; it had been low all
the time, a mere murmur in the silence of dark houses
with their shutters closed early against the night air,
as is the custom of Sulaco. Only the sala of the Casa
Gould flung out defiantly the blaze of its four windows,
the bright appeal of light in the whole dumb obscurity /
of the street. And the murmur on the little balcony
went on after a short pause.

"But we are labouring to change all that," Antonia
protested. "It is exactly what we desire. It is our
object. It is the great cause. And the word you
despise has stood also for sacrifice, for courage, for
constancy, for suffering. Papa, who '*

"Ploughing the sea," interrupted Decoud, looking
down.

There was below the sound of hasty and ponderous
footsteps.

"Your imcle, the grand-vicar of the cathedral, has
just turned under the gate," observed Decoud. "He
said Mass for the troops in the Plaza this morning.
They had built for him an altar of drums, you know.
And they brought outside all the painted blocks to take
the air. All the wooden saints stood militarily in a row
at the top of the great flight of steps. They looked
like a gorgeous escort attending the Vicar-General. I
saw the great function from the windows of the For-
venir. He is amazing, your uncle, the last of the
Corbelans. He glittered exceedingly in his vestments

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188 NOSTROMO

"".with a great crimson velvet cross down his back. And
all the time our saviour Barrios sat in the Amarilla
Club drinking punch at an open window. Esprit fort —
our Barrios. I expected every moment your imcle to
launch an excommunication there and then at the black
eye-patch in the window across the Plaza. But not
at all. Ultimately the troops marched oflF. Later
Barrios came down with some of the oflBcers, and stood
with his uniform all imbuttoned, discoursing at the
edge of the pavement. Suddenly your imde appeared,
no longer glittering, but all black, at the cathedral door
with that threatening aspect he has — ^you know, like a
sort of avenging spirit. He gives one look, strides over
straight at the group of imiforms, and leads away the
general by the elbow. He walked him for a quarter of
an hour in the shade of a wall. Never let go his elbow
for a moment, talking all the time with exaltation, and
gesticulating with a long black arm. It was a curious
scene. The oflBcers seemed struck with astonishment.
Remarkable man, your missionary uncle. He hates an
infidel much less than a heretic, and prefers a heathen
many times to an infidel. He condescends graciously
to call me a heathen, sometimes, you know."

Antonia listened with her hands over the balustrade,
opening and shutting the fan gently; and Decbud talked
a little nervously, as if afraid that she would leave him
at the first pause. Their comparative isolation, the
precious sense of intimacy, the slight contact of their
arms, affected him softly; for now and then a tender
inflection crept into the flow of his ironic murmurs.

"Any slight sign of favour from a relative of yours is
welcome, Antonia. And perhaps he understands me,
after all! But I know him, too, our Padre Corbd&n.
The idea of political honour, justice, and honesty for
him consists in the restitution of the confiscated Church

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THE ISABELS 189

property. Nothing else could have drawn that fierce
converter of savage Indians out of the wilds to work for
the Ribierist cause! Nothing else but that wild hope!
He would make a pronimciamiento himself for such an /
object against any Government if he could only get
followers! What does Don Carlos Gould think of
that? But, of course, with his English impenetrability,
nobody can tell what he thinks. Probably he thinks of
nothing apart from his mine; of his *Imperium in
Imperio.' AstoMrs. Gould, she thinks of her schools, of
her hospitals, of the mothers with the young babies, of
every sick old man in the three villages. If you were to
turn your head now you would see her extracting a re-
port from that sinister doctor in a check shirt — what's
his name? Monygham — or else catechising Don Pepe
or perhaps listening to Padre Roman. They are all
down here to-day — all her ministers of state. Well,
she is a sensible woman, and perhaps Don Carlos is a
sensible man. It's a part of soUd EngUsh sense not to
think too much; to see only what may be of practical
use at the moment. These people are not like ourselves.
We have no political reason; \ye have political passions
— sometimes. What is a conviction? A particular view
of our personal advantage either practical or emotional.
No one is a patriot for nothing. The word serves us
well. But I am clear-sighted, and I shall not use that
word to you, Antonia! I have no patriotic illusions. I
have only the supreme illusion of a lover."

He paused, then muttered almost inaudibly, "That
can lead one very far, though."

Behind their backs the political tide that once in
every twenty-four hours set with a strong flood through
the Gould drawing-room could be heard, rising higher
in a hum of voices. Men had been dropping in singly,
or in twos and threes : the higher officials of the province,

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190 NOSTROMO

engineers of the railway, sunburnt and in tweeds, with
the frosted head of their chief smiling with slow, humor-
ous indulgence amongst the young eager faces. Scarf e,
the lover of fandangos, had already shpped out in search
of some dance, no matter where, on the outskjrts of the
town. Don Juste Lopez, after taking his daughters
home, had entered solemnly, in a black cre&ed coat
buttoned up under his spreading brown beard. The
few members of the Provincial Assembly present
clustered at once around their President to discuss the
news of the war and the last proclamation of the rebel
Montero, the miserable Montero, calling in the name of
"a justly incensed democracy" upon all the Provincial
Assemblies of the Republic to suspend their sittings till
his sword had made peace and the will of the people
could be consulted. It was practically an invitation to
dissolve: an unheard-of audacity of that evil madman.

The indignation ran high in the knot of deputies be-
hind Jose Avellanos. Don Jose, lifting up his voice,
cried out to them over the high back of his chair,
"Sulaco has answered by sending to-day an army upon
his flank. If all the other provinces show only half as
much patriotism as we. Occidentals "

A great outburst of acclamations covered the vibrat-
ing treble of the life and soul of the party. Yes ! Yes !
This was true ! A great truth ! Sulaco was in the fore-
front, as ever! It was a boastful tumult, the hopeful-
ness inspired by the event of the day breaking out
amongst those caballeros of the Campo thinking of their
herds, of their lands, of the safety of their families.
Everything was at stake. . . . No! It was im-
possible that Montero should succeed! This criminal,
this shameless Indio! The clamour continued for some
time, everybody else in the room looking towards the
group where Don Juste had put on his air of impartial

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THE ISABELS 191

solemnity as if presiding at a sitting of the Provincial
Assembly. Decoud had turned round at the noise,
and, leaning his back on the balustrade, shouted into
the room with all the strength of his lungs, ^^GrarC
bestia /"

This unexpected cry had the effect of stilling the
noise. All the eyes were directed to the window with
an approving expectation; but Decoud had already
turned Jiis back upon the room, and was again leaning
out over the quiet street.

"This is the quintessence of my journalism; that is
the supreme argument," he said to Antonia. "I have
invented this definition, this last word on a great
question. But I am no patriot. I am no more of a
patriot than the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores, this
Genoese who has done such great things for this harbour
— this active usher-in of the material implements for our ^ "
progress. You have heard Captain Mitchell confess
over and over again that till he got this man he could
never tell how long it would take to unload a ship. -
That is bad for progress. You have seen him pass by %
after his labours on his famous horse to dazzle the gii|s
in some ballroom with an earthen floor. He is |a
fortunate fellow! His work is an exercise of personlil
powers; his leisure is spent in receiving the marks of
extraordinary adulation. And he likes it, too. Can
anybody be more fortunate? To be feared and ad-
mired is "

*And are these your highest aspirations, Don
Martin?" interrupted Antonia.

"I was speaking of a man of that sort," said Decoud,
curtly. "The ieroes of the world have been feared and
admired. What more could he want?"

Decoud had often felt his familiar habit of ironic
thought fall shattered against Antonia's gravity. She

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in NOSTROMO

irritated him as if she, too, had suffered from that in-
explicable feminine obtuseness which stands so often
between a man and a woman of the more ordinary sort.
But he overcame his vexation at once. He was very
far from thinking Antonia ordinary, whatever verdict
his scepticism might have pronounced upon himself.
With a touch of penetrating tenderness in his voice he
assured her that his only aspiration was to a felicity so
high that it seemed almost unrealizable on this earth.

She coloured invisibly, with a warmth against which
the breeze from the sierra seemed to have lost its cooling
power in the sudden melting of the snows. His whisper
could not have carried so far, though there was enough
ardour in his tone to melt a heart of ice. Antonia
turned away abruptly, as if to carry his whispered
assurance into the room behind, full of light, noisy with
voices.

The tide of political speculation was beating high
within the four walls of the great sala, as if driven
beyond the marks by a great gust of hope. Don Juste's
fan-shaped beard was still the centre of loud and
animated discussions. There was a self-confident ring
in all the voices. Even the few Europeans around
Charles Gould — a Dane, a couple of Frenchmen, a dis-
creet fat German, smiling, widi down-cast eyes, the
representatives of those material interests that had got
^^ footing in Sulaco under the protecting might of the
San Tom6 mine — ^had infused a lot of good humour into
their deference. Charles Gould, to whom they were
paying their court, was the visible sign of the stability
that could be achieved on the shifting ground of revolu-
tions. They felt hopeful about their various imder-
takings. Chie of the two Frenchmen, small, black, with
glittering eyes lost in an immense growth of bushy
beard, waved his tiny brown hands and delicate wrists.

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THE ISABELS IdS

He had been travelling in the interior of the province
for a syndicate of European capitalists. His forcible
*^ Monsieur V Administrateur'* returning every minute
shrilled above the steady hum of conversations. He
was relating his discoveries. He was ecstatic. Charles
Gould glanced down at him courteously.

At a given moment of these necessary receptions it
was Mrs. Gould's habit to withdraw quietly into a
little drawing-room, especially her own, next to the
great sala. She had risen, and, waiting for Antonia,
listened with a slightly worried graciousness to the
engineer-in-chief of the railway, who stooped over her,
relating slowly, without the slightest gesture, some-
thing apparently amusing, for his eyes had a humorous
twinkle. Antonia, before she advanced into the room
to join Mrs. Gould, turned her head over her shoulder
towards Decoud, only for a moment.

"Why should any one of us think his aspirations
unrealizable?" she said, rapidly.

"I am going to cling to mine to the end, Antonia,"
he answered, through clenched teeth, then bowed very
low, a little distantly.

The engineer-in-chief had not finished telling his
amusing story. The humours of railway building in
South America appealed to his keen appreciation of the
absurd, and he told his instances of ignorant prejudice
and as ignorant cimning very well. Now, Mrs. Gould
gave him all her attention as he walked by her side
escorting the ladies out of the room. Finally all three
passed unnoticed through the glass doors in the gallery.
Only a tall priest stalking silently in the noise of the sala
checked himself to look after them. Father Corbelan,
whom Decoud had seen from the balcony turning into
the gateway of the Casa Gould, had addressed no one
since coming in. The long, skimpy soutane accentu-

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194 NOSTROMO

ated the tallness of his stature; he carried his power-
ful torso thrown forward; and the straight, black bar of
his joined eyebrows, the pugnacious outline of the bony
face, the white spot of a scar on the bluish shaven
cheeks (a testimonial to his apostolic zeal from a party
\)f unconverted Indians), suggested something unlawful
behind his priesthood, the idea of a chaplain of bandits.

He separated his bony, knotted hands clasped behind
his back, to shake his finger at Martin.

Decoud had stepped into the room after Antonia.
But he did not go far. He had remained just within,
against the curtain, with an expression of not quite
genuine gravity, like a grown-up person taking part in a
game of children. He gazed quietly at the threatening
finger.

"I have watched yoUr reverence converting General
Barrios by a special sermon on the Plaza," he said, with-
out making the slightest movement.

"What miserable nonsense!" Father Corbelan's
deep voice resoimded all over the room, making all the
heads turn on the shoulders. "The man is a drunkard.
Sefiores, the God of your General is a bottle!"

His contemptuous, arbitrary voice caused an uneasy
suspension of every sound, as if the self-confidence of
the gathering had been staggered by a blow. But
nobody took up Father Corbelan's declaration.

It was known that Father Corbelkn had come out of
the wilds to advocate the sacred rights of the Church
with the same fanatical fearlessness with which he had
gone preaching to bloodthirsty savages, devoid of hu-
man compassion or worship of any kind. Rumours of
legendary proportions told of his successes as a mission-
ary beyond the eye of Christian men. He had baptized
whole nations of Indians, living with them like a savage
himself. It was related that the padre used to ride with

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THE ISABELS 195

♦

his Indians for days, half naked, carrying a bullock-hide
shield, and, no doubt, a long lance, too — who knows?
That he had wandered clothed in skins, seeking for
proselytes somewhere near the snow line of the Cor-
dillera. Of these exploits Padre Corbelan himself was
never known to talk. But he made no secret of his
opinion that the politicians of Sta. Marta had harder
hearts and more corrupt minds than the heathen to
whom he had carried the word of God. His injudicious
zeal for the temporal welfare of the Church was damag-
ing the Ribierist cause. It was common knowledge
that he had refused to be made titular bishop of the
Occidental diocese till justice was done to a despoiled
Church. The political Gefe of Sidaco (the same
dignitary whom Captain Mitchell saved from the
mob afterwards) hinted with naSve cynicism that
doubtless their Excellencies the Ministers sent the padre
over the mountains to Sulaco in the worst season of the
year in the hope that he would be frozen to death by
the icy blasts of the high paramos. Every year a few
hardy mideteers — ^men inured to exposure — were known
to perish in that way. But what would you have?
Their Excellencies possibly had not realized what a
tough priest he was. Meantime, the ignorant were
beginning to murmur that the Ribierist reforms meant
simply the taking away of the land from the people/
Some of it was to be given to foreigners who made the
railway; the greater part was to go to the padres.

These were the results of the Grand Vicar's zeal.
Even from the short allocution to the troops on the
Plaza (which only the first ranks could have heard) he
had not been able to keep out his fixed idea of an
outraged Church waiting for reparation from a penitent
country. The political Gefe had been exasperated*
But he coidd not very well throw the brother-in-law

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196 NOSTROMO

of Don Jose into the prison of the Cabildo. The chief
magistrate, an easy-going and popular oflSeial, visited
the Casa Gould, walking over after sunset from the
Intendencia, unattended, acknowledging with dignified
courtesy the salutations of high and low alike. That
evening he had walked up straight to Charles Gould
and had hissed out to him that he would have liked to
deport the Grand Vicar out of Sulaco, anywhere, to
some desert island, to the Isabels, for instance. "The
one without water preferably — eh, Don Carlos? " he had
added in a tone between jest and earnest. This un-
controllable priest, who had rejected his offer of the
episcopal palace for a residence and preferred to hang
his shabby hammock amongst the rubble and spiders
of the sequestrated Dominican Convent, had taken into
his head to advocate an unconditional pardon for Her-
nandez the Robber! And this was not enough; he
seemed to have entered into communication with the
most audacious criminal the country had known for
years. The Sulaco police knew, of course, what was
going on. Padre Corbelan had got hold of that reckless
Italian, the Capataz de Cargadores, the only man fit
for such an errand, and had sent a message through him.
Father Corbelan had studied in Rome, and could
speak Italian. The Capataz was known to visit the
old Dominican Convent at night. An old woman who
served the Grand Vicar had heard the name of Her-
nandez pronounced; and only last Saturday afternoon
the Capataz had been observed galloping out of town.
He did not return for two days. The police would have
laid the Italian by the heels it it had not been for fear of
the Cargadores, a turbulent body of men, quite apt to
raise a tumult. Nowadays it was not so easy to govern
Sulaco. Bad characters flocked into it, attracted by the
money in the pockets of the railway workmen. The

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THE ISABELS 197

populace was made restless by Father Corbelan's dis-
courses. And the first magistrate explained to Charles
Gould that now the province was stripped of troops any
outbreak of lawlessness would find the authorities with
their boots off, as it were.

Then he went away moodily to sit in an armchair,
smoking a long, thin cigar, not very far from Don
Jose, with whom, bending over sideways, he exchanged
a few words from time to time. He ignored the en-
trance of the priest, and whenever Father Corbelan's
voice was raised behind him, he shrugged his shoulders
impatiently.

Father Corbelan had remained quite motionless for a
time with that something vengeful in his immobility
which seemed to characterize all his attitudes. A lurid
glow of strong convictions gave its peculiar aspect to the
black figure. But its fierceness became softened as the
padre, fixing his eyes upon Decoud, raised his long,
black arm slowly, impressively —

"And you — you are a perfect heathen," he said, in a
subdued, deep voice.

He made a step nearer, pointing a forefinger at the
young man's breast. Decoud, very calm, felt the wall
behind the curtain with the back of his head. Then,
with his chin tilted well up, he smiled.

"Very well,'' he agreed with the slightly weary non-
chalance of a man well used to these passages. "But
is it perhaps that you have not discovered yet what is
the God of my worship? It was an easier task with our
Barrios."

The priest suppressed a gesture of discouragement.
"You believe neither in stick nor stone," he said.

"Nor bottle," added Decoud without stirring.
**Neither does the other of your reverence's confidants.
I mean the Capataz of the Cargadores. He does not

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198 NOSTROMO

drink. Your reading of my character does honour to
you perspicacity. But why call me a heathen?"

"True," retorted the priest. "You are ten times
worse. A miracle could not convert you."

"I certainly do not believe in miracles," said Decoud,
quietly. Father Corbelan shrugged his high, broad
shoulders doubtfully.

"A sort of Frenchman — ^godless — a materialist,"
he pronounced slowly, as if weighing the terms of a
careful analysis. "Neither the son of his own country
nor of any other," he continued, thoughtfully.

"Scarcely human, in fact," Decoud commented under
his breath, his head at rest against the wall, his eyes
gazing up at the ceiling.

"The victim of this faithless age," Father Corbelan
resumed in a deep but subdued voice.

"But of some use as a journalist." Decoud changed
his pose and spoke in a more animated tone. "Has
your worship neglected to read the last number of the
Porvenir ? I assure you it is just like the others. On
the general policy it continues to call Montero a grarC
bestitty and stigmatize his brother, the guerrillero, for a
combination of lacquey and spy. What could be more
eflFective? In local affairs it urges the Provincial
Government to enlist bodily into the national army the
band of Hernandez the Robber — who is apparently
the protSgS of the Church — or at least of the Grand
Vicar. Nothing could be more sound."

The priest nodded and turned on the heels of his
square-toed shoes with big steel buckles. Again, with
his hands clasped behind his back, he paced to and fro,
planting his feet firmly. When he swung about, the
skirt of his soutane was inflated slightly by the brusque-
ness of his movements.

The great sala had been emptying itself slowly.

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THE ISABELS 199

When the Gefe Politico rose to go, most of those still
remaining stood up suddenly in sign of respect, and Don
Jose Avellanos stopped the rocking of his chair. But
the good-natured First OflScial made a deprecatory ges-
ture, waved his hand to Charles Gould, and went out
discreetly.

In the comparative peace of the room the screaming
^'Monsieur VAdministrateur'* of the frail, hairy French-
man seemed to acquire a preternatural shrillness. The
explorer of the Capitalist syndicate was still enthusias-
tic. " Ten million dollars* worth of copper practically in
sight. Monsieur VAdministrateur. Ten millions in sight ! /
And a railway coming — a railway! They will never
believe my report. C'est trop heau^ He fell a prey to
a screaming ecstasy, in the midst of sagely nodding
heads, before Charles Gould's imperturbable calm.

And only the priest continued his pacing, flinging
iroimd the skirt of his soutane at each end of his beat.
Decoud murmured to him ironically: "Those gentlemen
talk about their gods."

Father Corbelan stopped short, looked at the jour-
nalist of Sulaco fixedly for a moment, shrugged his
shoulders slightly, and resumed his plodding walk of an
obstinate traveller.

And now the Europeans were dropping off from the
group around Charles Gould till the Administrador of
the Great Silver Mine could be seen in his whole lank
length, from head to foot, left stranded by the ebbing
tide of his guests on the great square of carpet, as it
were a multi-coloured shoal of flowers and arabesques
under his brown boots. Father Corbelan approached
the rocking-chair of Don Jose Avellanos.

"Come, brother," he said, with kindly brusqueness
and a touch of relieved impatience a man may feel at the
end of a perfectly useless ceremony. "-4 la Casa I A

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200 NOSTROMO

la Casa I This has been all talk. Let us now go and
think and pray for guidance from Heaven."

He rolled his black eyes upwards. By the side of the
frail diplomatist — the life and soul of the party — ^he
seemed gigantic, with a gleam of fanaticism in the
glance. But the voice of the party, or, rather, its
mouthpiece, the "son Decoud" from Paris, turned
journalist for the sake of Antonia's eyes, knew very well
that it was not so, that he was only a strenuous priest
with one idea, feared by the women and execrated by
the men of the people. Martin Decoud, the dilettante
/in life, imagined himself to derive an artistic pleasure
from watching the picturesque extreme of wrong-
headedness into which an honest, almost sacred, con-
viction may drive a man. "It is like madness. It
must be — ^because it's self-destructive," Decoud had
said to himself often. It seemed to him that every
conviction, as soon as it became effective, turned into
that form of dementia the gods send upon those they
wish to destroy. But he enjoyed the bitter flavour of
that example with the zest of a connoisseur in the art
of his choice. Those two men got on well together, as
if each had felt respectively that a masterful con-
viction, as well as utter scepticism, may lead a man
very far on the by-paths of political action.

Don Jose obeyed the touch of the big hairy hand.
Decoud followed out the brothers-in-law. And there
remained only one visitor in the vast empty sala,
bluishly hazy with tobacco smoke, a heavy-eyed, round-
cheeked man, with a drooping moustache, a hide mer-
chant from Esmeralda, who had come overland to
Sulaco, riding with a few peons across the coast range.
He was very full of his journey, undertaken mostly for
the purpose of seeing the Senor Administrador of San
Tome in relation to some assistance he required in his

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THE ISABELS 801

hide-exporting business. He hoped to enlarge it greatly
now that the coimtry was going to be settled. It was
going to be settled, he repeated several times, degrad-
ing by a strange, anxious whine the sonority of the
Spanish language, which he pattered rapidly, like some
sort of cringing jargon. A plain man could carry on his
little business now in the country, and even think of
enlarging it — with safety. Was it not so? He seemed
to beg Charles Gould for a confirmatory word, a grunt
of assent, a simple nod even.

He could get nothing. His alarm increased, and in
the pauses he would dart his eyes here and there; then,
loth to give up, he would branch off into feeling allusion
to the dangers of his journey. The audacious Her-
nandez, leaving his usual haunts, had crossed the
Campo of Sulaco, and was known to be lurking in the
ravines of the coast range. Yesterday, when distant
only a few hours from Sulaco, the hide merchant and his
servants had seen three men on the road arrested sus-
piciously, with their horses' heads together. Two of
these rode off at once and disappeared in a shallow
quebrada to the left. "We stopped," continued the
man from Esmeralda, "and I tried to hide behind a
small bush. But none of my mozos would go forward
to find out what it meant, and the third horseman
seemed to be waiting for us to come up. It was no use.
We had been seen. So we rode slowly on, trembling.
He let us pass — a man on a grey horse with his hat down
on his eyes — without a word of greeting; but by-and-by
we heard him galloping after us. We faced about, but
that did not seem to intimidate him. He rode up at
speed, and touching my foot with the toe of his boot,
asked me for a cigar, with a blood-curdling laugh. He
did not seem armed, but when he put his hand back to
reach for the matches I saw an enormous revolver

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202 NOSTROMO

strapped to his waist. I shuddered. He had very
fierce whiskers, Don Carlos, and as he did not offer to go
on we dared not move. At last, blowing the smoke
of my cigar into the air through his nostrils, he said,
*Senor, it would be perhaps better for you if I rode be-
hind your party. You are not very far from Sulaco
now. Go you with God.* What would you? We
went on. There was no resisting him. He might have
been Hernandez himself; though my servant, who has
been many times to Sulaco by sea, assured me that he
had recognized him very well for the Capataz of the
Steamship Company's Cargadores. Later, that same
evening, I saw that very man at the comer of the Plaza
talking to a girl, a Morenita, who stood by the stirrup
with her hand on the grey horse's mane."

"I assure you, Seiior Hirsch," murmured Charlef^
Gould, "that you ran no risk on this occasion.'*

"That may be, senor, though I tremble yet. A most
fierce man — to look at. And what does it mean? A
person employed by the Steamship Company talking
with salteadores — no less, senor; the other horsemen
were salteadores — in a lonely place, and behaving like
a robber himself! A cigar is nothing, but what was
there to prevent him asking me for my purse?'*

"No, no, Senor Hirsch," Charles Gould murmured,
letting his glance stray away a little vacantly from the
round face, with its hooked beak upturned towards him
in an almost childlike appeal. "If it was the Capataz
de Cargadores ;/OU met — and there is no doubt, is there?
— you were perfectly safe."

"Thank you. You are very good. A very fierce-
looking man, Don Carlos. He asked me for a cigar in a
most familiar manner. What would have happened if
I had not had a cigar? I shudder yet. What business
had he to be talking with robbers in a lonely place?"

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THE ISABELS 203

But Charles Gould, openly preoccupied now, gave
not a sign, made no sound. The impenetrability of the
embodied Gould Concession had its surface shades. Tqr
be dumb is merely a fatal affliction; but the King of
Sulaco had words enough to give him all the mysterious
weight of a taciturn force. His silences, backed by
the power of speech, had as many shades of significance
as uttered words in. the way of assent, of doubt, of
negation — even of simple comment. Some seemed to
say plainly, "Think it over"; others meant clearly,
"Go ahead"; a simple, low "I see," with an affirmative
nod, at the end of a patient listening half -hour was the
equivalent of a verbal contract, which men had learned
to trust implicitly, since behind it all there was the
great San Tome mine, the head and front of the material
interests, so strong that it depended on no man's good-
will in the whole length and breadth of the Occidental
Province — that is, on no goodwill which it could not buy
ten times over. But to the little hook-nosed man from
Esmeralda, anxious about the export of hides, the
silence of Charles Gould portended a failure. Evi-
dently this was no time for extending a modest man's
business. He enveloped in a swift mental malediction
the whole country, with all its inhabitants, partisans of
Ribiera and Montero alike; and there were incipient
tears in his mute anger at the thought of the in-
numerable ox-hides going to waste upon the dreamy /
expanse of the Campo, with its single palms rising like/
ships at sea within the perfect circle of the horizon, its
clumps of heavy timber motionless like solid islands of
leaves above the running waves of grass. There were
hides there, rotting, with no profit to anybody — rotting
where they had been dropped by men called away to
attend the urgent necessities of political revolutions.
The practical, mercantile soul of Senor Hirsch rebelled

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204 NOSTROMO

. against all that foolishness, while he was taking a

\ respectful but disconcerted leave of the might and

majesty of the San Tome mine in the person of Charles

Gould. He could not restrain a heart-broken murmur,

wrung out of his very aching heart, as it were.

"It is a great, great foolishness, Don Carlos, all this.
The price of hides in Hamburg is gone up — up. Of
course the Ribierist Government will do away with all
that — ^when it gets established firmly. Meantime **

He sighed.

"Yes, meantime," repeated Charles Gould, inscrut-
ably.

The other shrugged his shoulders. But he was not
ready to go yet. There was a little matter he would like
to mention very much if permitted. It appeared he had
some good friends in Hamburg (he murmured the name
of the firm) who were very anxious to do business, in
dynamite, he explained. A contract for dynamite with
the San Tome mine, and then, perhaps, later on, other

mines, which were sure to The little man from

Esmeralda was ready to enlarge, but Charles inter-
rupted him. It seemed as though the patience of the
Senor Administrador was giving way at last.

"Senor Hirsch," he said, "I have enough dynamite
stored up at the moimtain to send it down crashing into
the valley" — ^his voice rose a little — "to send half
Sulaco into the air if I liked."

Charles Gould smiled at the round, startled eyes of
the dealer in hides, who was murmuring hastily, "Just
so. Just so." And now he was going. It was im-
possible to do business in explosives with an Adminis-
trador so well provided and so discouraging. He had
suffered agonies in the saddle and had exposed himself
to the atrocities of the bandit Hernandez for nothing
at all. Neither hides nor dynamite — and the very

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THE ISABELS 805

shoulders of the enterprising Israelite expressed de-
jection. At the door he bowed low to the engineer-in-
chief. But at the bottom of the stairs in the patio he
stopped short, with his podgy hand over his lips in an
attitude of meditative astonishment.

"What does he want to keep so much dynamite for?"
he muttered. " And why does he talk like this to me? "

The engineer-in-chief, looking in at the door of the
empty sala, whence the political tide had ebbed out to /
the last insignificant drop, nodded familiarly to the
master of the house, standing motionless like a tall
beacon amongst the deserted shoals of furniture.

"Good-night, I am going. Got my bike downstairs.
The railway will know where to go for dynamite should
we get short at any time. We have done cutting and
chopping for a while now. We shall begin soon to blast
our way through."

"Don't come to me," said Charles Gould, with per-
fect serenity. "I shan't have an ounce to spare for
anybody. Not an oimce. Not for my own brother, if
I had a brother, and he were the engineer-in-chief of
the most promising railway in the world."

"What's that?" asked the engineer-in-chief, with
equanimity. " Unkindness? "

"No," said Charles Gould, stolidly. "Policy.]'

"Radical, I should think," the engineer-in-chief ob-
served from the doorway.

"Is that the right name?" Charles Gould said, from
the middle of the room.

"I mean, going to the roots, you know," the engineer
explained, with an air of enjoyment.

"Why, yes," Charles pronounced, slowly. "The
Gould Concession has struck such deep roots in this*
country, in this province, in that gorge of the moun-
tains, that nothing but dynamite shall be allowed to

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i06 NOSTROMO

dislodge it from there. It's my choice. It's my last
card to play."

The engineer-in-chief whistled low. "A pretty
game/' he said, with a shade of discretion. "And have
you told Holroyd of that extraordinary trmnp card you
hold in your hand?"

"Card only when it's played; when it falls at the end
of the game. Till then you may call it a — a "

"Weapon," suggested the railway man.

"No. You may call it rather an argument," cor-
rected Charles Gould, gently. "And that's how I've
presented it to Mr. Holroyd."

"And what did he say to it? " asked the engineer, with
undisguised interest.

"He" — Charles Gould spoke after a slight pause —
"he said something about holding on like grim death
and putting our trust in God. I should imagine he
must have been rather startled. But then" — pursued
the Administrador of the San Tome mine — "but then,
he is very far away, you know, and, as they say in this
country, God is very high above."

The engineer's appreciative laugh died away down
the stairs, where the Madonna with the Child on her
arm seemed to look after his shaking broad back from
her shallow niche.

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CHAPTER SIX

A PROFOUND stillness reigned in the Casa Gould.
The master of the house, walking along the corredor^
opened the door of his room, and saw his wife sitting in
a big armchair — ^his own smoking armchair — thought-
ful, contemplating her little shoes. And she did not
raise her eyes when he walked in.

"Tired?" asked Charles Gould.

"A little," said Mrs. Gould. Still without looking
up, she added with feeling, "There is an awful sense of
unreality about all this."

Charles Gould, before the long table strewn with
papers, on which lay a hunting crop and a pair of spurs,
stood looking at his wife: "The heat and dust must
have been awful this afternoon by the waterside," he
murmured, sympathetically. "The glare on the water
must have been simply terrible."

"One could close one's eyes to the glare," said Mrs.
Gould. "But, my dear Charley, it is impossible for me
to dose my eyes to our position; to this awful . . ."

She raised her eyes and looked at her husband's face,
from which all sign of sympathy or any other feeling
had disappeared. "Why don't you tell me some-
thing? " she almost wailed.

"I thought you had imderstood me perfectly from
the first," Charles Gould said, slowly. "I thought we
had said all there was to say a long time ago. There
is nothing to say now. There were things to be done.
We have done them; we have gone on doing them.
There is no going back now. I don't suppose that, even

207

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208 NOSTROMO

from the first, there was really any possible way back*
And, what's more, we can't even afford to stand still."

"Ah, if one only knew how far you mean to go," said
his wife., inwardly trembling, but in an almost playful
tone.

"Any distance, any length, of course," was the
answer, in a matter-of-fact tone, which caused Mrs.
Gould to make another effort to repress a shudder.

She stood up, smiling graciously, and her little figure
seemed to be diminished still more by the heavy mass of
her hair and the long train of her gown.

"But always to success," she said, persuasively.

Charles Gould, enveloping her in the steely blue
glance of his attentive eyes, answered without hesita-
tion —

"Oh, there is no alternative."

He put an immense assurance into his tone. As to
the words, this was all that his conscience would allow
him to say.

Mrs. Gould's smile remained a shade too long upon
her lips. She murmured —

"I will leave you; I've a slight headache. The heat,

the dust, were indeed I suppose you are going

back to the mine before the morning?'*

"At midnight," said Charles Gould. "We are bring-
ing down the silver to-morrow. Then I shall take three
whole days off in town with you."

"Ah, you are going to meet the escort. I shall be on
the balcony at five o'clock to see you pass. Till then,
good-bye."

Charles Gould walked rapidly round the table, and,
seizing her hands, bent down, pressing them both to his
lips. Before he straightened himself up again to his full
height she had disengaged one to smooth his cheek with
a light touch, as if he were a little boy.

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THE ISABELS 209

**Try to get some rest for ^ couple of hours," she mur-
mured, with a glance at a hammock stretched in a
distant part of the room. Her long train swished
softly after her on the red tiles. At the door she
looked back.

Two big lamps with unpolished glass globes bathed in
a soft and abimdant light the four white walls of the
roQpi, with a glass case of arms, the brass hilt of Henry
Gould's cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and the
water-colour sketch of the San Tome gorge. And Mrs.
Gould, gazing at the last in its black wooden frame,
sighed out —

"Ah, if we had left it alone, Charley!"

"No," Charles Gould said, moodily; "it was im-
possible to leave it alone."

"Perhaps it was impossible," Mrs. Gould admitted,
slowly. Her lips quivered a little, but she smiled with
an air of dainty bravado. "We have disturbed a good
many snakes in that Paradise, Charley, haven't we?"

"Yes, I remember," said Charles Gould, "it was
Don Pepe who called the gorge the Paradise of snakes.
No doubt we have disturbed a great many. But re-
member, my dear, that it is not now as it was when you
made that sketch." He waved his hand towards the
small water-colour hanging alone upon the great bare
wall. "It is no longer a Paradise of snakes. We have
brought mankind into it, and we cannot turn our backs
upon them to go and begin a new life elsewhere."

He confronted his wife with a firm, concentrated gaze,
which Mrs. Gould returned with a brave assumption of
fearlessness before she went out, closing the door gently
after her.

In contrast with the white glaring room the dimly
lit corredor had a restful mysteriousness of a forest
glade, suggested by the stems and the leaves of the

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210 NOSTROMO

plants ranged along the balustrade of the open side. In
the streaks of light falling through the open doors of the
reception-rooms, the blossoms, white and red and pale
lilac, came out vivid with the brilliance of flowers in a
stream of sunshine; and Mrs. Gould, passing on, had the
vividness of a figure seen in the clear patches of sun that
chequer the gloom of open glades in the woods. The
stones in the rings upon her hand pressed to her fore-
head glittered in the lamplight abreast of the door of the
sala.

"Who's there?" she asked, in a startled voice. "Is
that you, Basilio?" She looked in, and saw Martin
Decoud walking about, with an air of having lost some-
thing, amongst the chairs and tables.

"Antonia has forgotten her fan in here," said De-
coud, with a strange air of distraction; "so I entered
to see."

But, even as he said this, he had obviously given up
his search, and walked straight towards Mrs. Gould,
who looked at him with doubtful surprise.

"Senora," he began, in a low voice.

"What is it, Don Martin?" asked Mrs. Gould. And
then she added, with a slight laugh, "I am so nervous
to-day," as if to explain the eagerness of the question.

"Nothing immediately dangerous," said Decoud,
who now could not conceal his agitation. "Pray don't
distress yourself. No, really, you must not distress
yourself."

Mrs. Gould, with her candid eyes very wide open,
her lips composed into a smile, was steadying herself
with a little bejewelled hand against the side of the door.

"Perhaps you don't know how alarming you are,
appearing like this unexpectedly "

"I! Alarming!" he protested, sincerely vexed and
surprised. "I assure you that I am not in the least

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THE ISABELS 211

alanned myself. A fan is lost; well, it will be found
again. But I don't think it is here. It is a fan I
am looking for. I cannot understand how Antonia
could Well! Have you found it, amigo?"

"No, seflor," said behind Mrs. Gould the soft voice
of Basilio, the head servant of the Casa. "I don't
think the seflorita could have left it in this house at all."

"Go and look for it in the patio again. Go now, my
friend; look for it on the steps, under the gate; examine
every flagstone; search for it till I come down
again. . . . That fellow" — he addressed himself
in English to Mrs. Gould — "is always stealing up be-
hind one's back on his bare feet. I set him to look for
that fan directly I came in to justify my reappearance,
my sudden return."

He paused and Mrs. Gould said, amiably, "You are
always welcome." She paused for a second, too. "But
I am waiting to learn the cause of your return."

Decoud affected suddenly the utmost nonchalance.

"I can't bear to be spied upon. Oh, the cause?
Yes, there is a cause; there is something else that is lost
besides Antonia's favourite fan. As I was walking
home after seeing Don Jose and Antonia to their house,
the Capataz de Cargadores, riding down the street,
spoke to me."

"Has anything happened to the Violas?" inquired
Mrs. Gould.

"The Violas? You mean the old Garibaldino who
keeps the hotel where the engineers live? Nothing
happened there. The Capataz said nothing of them; he
only told me that the telegraphist of the Cable Com-
pany was walking on the Plaza, bareheaded, looking out
for me. There is news from the interior, Mrs. Gould.
I should rather say rumours of news."

"Good news?" said Mrs. Gould in a low voice.

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212 NOSTROMO

"Worthless, I should think. But if I must define
them, I would say bad. They are to the eflFeet that a
two days' battle had been fought near Sta. Marta, and
that the Ribierists are defeated. It must have hap-
pened a few days ago — ^perhaps a week. The rumour
has just reached Cayta, and the man in charge of the
cable station there has telegraphed the news to his
colleague here. We might just as well have kept
Barrios in Sulaco."

"What's to be done now?" murmured Mrs. Gould.

"Nothing. He's at sea with the troops. He will
get to Cayta in a couple of days' time and learn the
news there. What he will do then, who can say?
Hold Cayta? OflFer his submission to Montero? Dis-
band his army — this last most likely, and go himself
in one of the O.S.N. Company's steamers, north or
south — ^to Valparaiso or to San Francisco, no matter
where. Our Barrios has a great practice in exiles and
repatriations, which mark the points in the political
game."

Decoud, exchanging a steady stare with Mrs. Gould,
added, tentatively, as it were, "And yet, if we had
Barrios with his 2,000 improved rifles here, something
could have been done."

"Montero victorious, completely victorious!" Mrs.
Gould breathed out in a tone of unbelief.

"A canard, probably. That sort of bird is hatched
in great numbers in such times as these. And eyen if it
were true? Well, let us put things at their worst, let
us say it is true."

"Then everything is lost," said Mrs. Gould, with the
calmness of despair.

Suddenly she seemed to divine, she seemed to see
Decoud's tremendous excitement under its cloak of
studied carelessness. It was, indeed, becoming visible

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THE ISABELS 213

in his audacious and watchful stare, in the curve, half-
reckless, half-contemptuous, of his lips. And a French
phrase came upon them as if, for this Costaguanero of
the Boulevard, that had been the only forcible lan-
guage—

"ATon, Madame. Rien rCest perdu.''

It electrified Mrs. Gould out of her benumbed atti-
tude, and she said, vivaciously —

"What would you think of doing?"

But already there was something of mockery in
Decoud's suppressed excitement.

"What would you expect a true Costaguanero to do?
Another revolution, of course. On my word of honour,
Mrs. Gould, I believe I am a true hijo del pays^ a true
son of the country, whatever Father Corbelan may say.
And I'm not so much of an unbeliever as not to have
faith in my own ideas, in my own remedies, in my own
desires."

"Yes," said Mrs. Gould, doubtfully.

"You don't seem convinced," Decoud went on again
in French. "Say, then, in my passions."

Mrs. Gould received this addition unflinchingly. To
understand it thoroughly she did not require to hear
his muttered assurance —

"There is nothing I would not do for the sake of
Antonia. There is nothing I am not prepared to under-
take. There is no risk I am not ready to rim."

Decoud seemed to find a fresh audacity in this voicing
of his thoughts. "You would not believe me if I were
to say that it is the love of the country which "

She made a sort of discouraged protest with her arm,^
as if to express that she had given up expecting that
motive from any one.

"A Sulaco revolution," Decoud pursued in a forcible
undertone. "The Great Cause may be served here,

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214 NOSTROMO

on the very spot of its inception, in the place of its
birth, Mrs. Gould."

Frowning, and biting her lower lip thoughtfully, she
made a step away from the door.

" You are not going to speak to your husband? " De-
coud arrested her anxiously.

"But you will need his help?"

"No doubt," Decoud admitted without hesitation.
"Everything turns upon the San Tome mine, but I
would rather he didn't know anything as yet of my —
my hopes."

A puzzled look came upoji Mrs. Gould's face, and
Decoud, approaching, explained confidentially —

"Don't you see, he's such an idealist."

Mrs. Gould flushed pink, and her eyes grew darker
at the same time.

"Charley an idealist!" she said, as if to herself,
wonderingly. "What on earth do you mean?"

"Yes," conceded Decoud, "it's a wonderful thing to
say with the sight of the San Tome mine, the greatest
fact in the whole of South America, perhaps, before our
very eyes. But look even at that, he has idealized this

fact to a point " He paused. "Mrs. Gould, are

^^^syou aware to what point he has idealized the existence,
the worth, the meaning of the San Tome mine? Are
you aware of it?"

He must have known what he was talking about.

The effect he expected was produced. Mrs. Gould,
ready to take fire, gave it up suddenly with a low little
sound that resembled a moan.

"What do you know?" she asked in a feeble voice.

"Nothing," answered Decoud, firmly. "But, then,
don't you see, he's an Englishman?"

"Well, what of that?" asked Mrs. Gould.

"Simply that he cannot act or exist without idealizing

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THE ISABELS 215

every simple feeling, desire, or achievement. He could
not believe his own motives if he did not make them
first a part of some fairy tale. The earth is not quite
good enough for him, I fear. Do you excuse my frank-
ness? Besides, whether you excuse it or not, it is part
of the truth of things which hurts the — what do you call
them.'^ — ^the Anglo-Saxon's susceptibilities, and at the
present moment I don't feel as if I could treat seriously
either his conception of things or — ^if you allow me to
say so — or yet yours."

Mrs. Gould gave no sign of being offended. "I sup-
pose Antonia understands you thoroughly?"

"Understands? Well, yes. But I am not sure that
she approves. That, however, makes no difference. I
am honest enough to tell you that, Mrs. Gould."

"Your idea, of course, is separation," she said.

"Separation, of course," declared Martin. "Yes;
separation of the whole Occidental Province from the
rest of the unquiet body. But my true idea, the only
one I care for, is not to be separated from Antonia."

"And that is all?" asked Mrs. Gould, without
severity.

"Absolutely. I am not deceiving myself about my
motives. She won't leave Sulaco for my sake, there-
fore Sulaco must leave the rest of the Republic to its
fate. Nothing could be clearer than that. I like
a clearly defined situation. I cannot part with An-
tonia, therefore the one and indivisible Republic of
Costaguana must be made to part with its western
province. Fortunately it happens to be also a sound
policy. The richest, the most fertile part of this land
may be saved from anarchy. Personally, I care little,
very little; but it's a fact that the establishment of
Montero in power would mean death to me. In all the
proclamations of general pardon which I have seen,'

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216 NOSTROMO

my name, with a few others, is specially excepted. The
brothers hate me, as you know very well, Mrs. Gould;
and behold, here is the rumour of them having won a
battle. You say that supposing it is true, I have plenty
of time to run away."

The slight, protesting murmur on the part of Mrs.
Gould made him pause for a moment, while he looked
at her with a sombre and resolute glance.

"Ah, but I would, Mrs. Gould. I would run away
if it served that which at present is my only desire. I
am courageous enough to say that, and to do it, too.
But women, even our women, are idealists. It is
Antonia that won't run away. A novel sort of vanity."

"You call it vanity," said Mrs. Gould, in a shocked
voice.

"Say pride, then, which, Father Corbelan would tell
you, is a mortal sin. But I am not proud. I am simply
too much in love to run away. At the same time I
want to live. There is no love for a dead man. There-
fore it is necessary that Sulaco should not recognize the
victorious Montero."

"And you think my husband will give you his sup-^
port?"

"I think he can be drawn into it, like all idealists,
when he once sees a sentimental basis for his action.
But I wouldn't talk to him-. Mere clear facts won't
appeal to his sentiment. It is much better for him to
convince himself in his own way. And, frankly, I could
not, perhaps, just now pay suflScient respect to either
his motives or even, perhaps, to yours, Mrs. Gould."

It was evident that Mrs. Gould was very determined
not to be offended. She smiled vaguely, while she
seemed to think the matter over. As far as she could
judge from the girl's half-confidences, Antonia under-
stood that yoimg man. Obviously there was promise of

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THE ISABELS 217

safety in his plan, or rather in his idea. Moreover,
right or wrong, the idea could do no harm. And it was
quite possible, also, that the rumour was false.

"You have some sort of a plan," she said.

"Simplicity itself. Barrios has started, let him go
on then; he will hold Cayta, which is the door of the sea
route to Sulaco. They cannot send a suflScient force
over the moimtains. No; not even to cope with the
band of Hernandez. Meantime we shall organize our
resistance here. And for that, this very Hernandez
will be useful. He has defeated troops as a bandit; he
will no doubt accomplish the same thing if he is made a
colonel or even a general. You know the coimtry well
enough not to be shocked by what I say, Mrs. Gould.
I have heard you assert that this poor bandit was the
living,breathing example of cruelty, injustice, stupidity,
and oppression, that ruin men's souls as well as their
fortimes in this country. Well, there would be some
poetical retribution in that man arising to crush the evils
which had driven an honest ranchero into a life of
crime. A fine idea of retribution in that, isn't there?"

Decoud had dropped easily into English, which he
spoke with precision, very correctly, but with too many
z sounds.

"Think also of your hospitals, of your schools, of
your ailing mothers and feeble old men, of all that
population which you and your husband have brought
into the rocky gorge of San Tome. Are you not re-
sponsible to your conscience for all these people? Is it
not worth while to make another effort, which is not at
all so desperate as it looks, rather than "

Decoud finished his thought with an upward toss of
the arm, suggesting annihilation; and Mrs. Gould
turned away her head with a look of horror.

"Why don't you say all this to my husband?" she

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218 NOSTROMO

asked, without looking at Decoud, who stood watching
the effect of his words.

"Ah! But Don Carlos is so English/' he began.
Mrs. Gould interrupted —

"Leave that alone, Don Martin. He's as much a

Costaguanero ^No! He's more of a Costaguanero

than yourself."

"Sentimentalist, sentimentalist," Decoud almost
cooed, in a tone of gentle and soothing deference.
"Sentimentalist, after the amazing manner of your
people. I have been watching El Rey de Sulaco since
I came here on a fool's errand, and perhaps impelled by
some treason of fate lurking behind the unaccountable
turns of a man's life. But I don't matter, I am not a
sentimentalist, I cannot endow my personal desires
with a shining robe of silk and jewels. Life is not for
me a moral romance derived from the tradition of a
pretty fairy tale. No, Mrs. Gould; I am practical. I
am not afraid of my motives. But, pardon me, I have
been rather carried away. What I wish to say is that I
have been observing. I won't tell you what I have
discovered "

"No. That is unnecessary," whispered Mrs. Gould,
once more averting her head.

"It is. Except one little fact, that your husband does
not like me. It's a small matter, which, in the circum-
stances, seems to acquire a perfectly ridiculous im-
portance. Ridiculous and immense; for, clearly, money
is required for my plan," he reflected; then added,
meaningly, "and we have two sentimentalists to deal
with."

"I don't know that I understand you, Don Martin,"
said IMrs. Gould, coldly, preserving the low key of their
conversation. "But, speaking as if I did, who is the
other?"

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THE ISABELS 219

**The great Holroyd in San Francisco, of course/'
Decoud whispered, lightly. "I think you imderstand
me very well. Women are idealists; but then they are
so perspicacious."

But whatever was the reason of that remark, dis-
paraging and complimentary at the same time, Mrs.
Gould seemed not to pay attention to it. The name of
Holroyd had given a new tone to her anxiety.

"The silver escort is coming down to the harbour to-
morrow; a whole six months' working, Don Martin!"
she cried in dismay.

"Let it come down, then,'* breathed out Decoud,
earnestly, almost into her ear.

"But if the rumour should get about, and especially
if it turned out true, troubles might break out in the
town," objected Mrs. Gould.

Decoud admitted that it was possible. He knew
well the town children of the Sulaco Campo: sullen, /
thievish, vindictive, and bloodthirsty, whatever great
qualities their brothers of the plain might have had.
But then there was that other sentimentalist, who
attached a strangely idealistic meaning to concrete
facts. This stream of silver must be kept flowing
north to return in the form of financial backing from the
great house of Holroyd. Up at the mountain in the
strong room of the mine the silver bars were worth less
for his purpose than so much lead, from which at least
bullets may be run. Let it come down to the harbour,
ready for shipment.

The next north-going steamer would carry it off for
the very salvation of the San Tom6 mine, which had ^
produced so much treasure. And, moreover, the
rumour was probably false, he remarked, with much
conviction in his hurried tone.

"Besides, seiiora," concluded Decoud, "we may

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«20 NOSTROMO

suppress it for many days. I have been talking with
the telegraphist in the middle of the Plaza Mayor; thus
[ am certain that we could not have been overheard.
There was not even a bird in the air near us. And also
let me tell you something more. I have been making
friends with this man called Nostromo, the Capataz.
We had a conversation this very evening, I walking by
the side of his horse as he rode slowly out of the town
just now. He promised me that if a riot took place for
any reason — even for the most political of reasons, you
understand — his Cargadores, an important part of the
populace, you will admit, should be found on the side of
the Europeans."

"He has promised you that?" Mrs. Gould inquired,
with interest. "What made him make that promise to
you?"

"Upon my word, I don't know," declared Decoud, in
a slightly surprised tone. "He certainly promised me
that, but now you ask me why, I could not tell you
his reasons. He talked with his usual carelessness,
which, if he had been anything else but a common
sailor, I would call a pose or an affectation."

Decoud, interrupting himself, looked at Mrs. Gould
curiously.

"Upon the whole," he continued, "I suppose he
expects something to his advantage from it. You
mustn't forget that he does not exercise his extraor-
dinary power over the lower classes without a certain
amount of personal risk and without a great profusion
in spending his money. One must pay in some way or
other for such a solid thing as individual prestige. He
told me after we made friends at a dance, in a Posada
kept by a Mexican just outside the walls, that he had
come here to make his fortune. I suppose" he looks
iiDon his prestige as a sort of investment."

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THE ISABELS 221

"Perhaps he prizes it for its own sake," Mrs. Gould
said in a tone as if she were repelling an undeserved
aspersion. "Viola, the Garibaldino, with whom he has
lived for some years, calls him the Incorruptible."

"Ah! he belongs to the group of your proUgSs out
there towards the harbour, Mrs. Gould. Muy bien.
And Captain Mitchell calls him wonderful. I have
heard no end of tales of his strength, his audacity, his
fidelity. No end of fine things. H'm! incorruptible!
It is indeed a name of honour for the Capataz of the
Cargadores of Sulaco. Incorruptible! Fine, but vague, f
However, I suppose he's sensible, too. And I talked to
him upon that sane and practical assumption."

"I prefer to think him disinterested, and therefore
trustworthy," Mrs. Gould said, with the nearest ap-
proach to curtness it was in her nature to assume.

"Well, if so, then the silver will be still more safe.
Let it come down, senora. Let it come down, so that it
may go north and return to us in the shape of credit."

Mrs. Gould glanced along the corredor towards the
door of her husband's room. Decoud, watching her as
if she had his fate in her hands, detected an almost
imperceptible nod of assent. He bowed with a smile,
and, putting his hand into the breast pocket of his coat,
pulled out a fan of light feathers set upon painted leaves
of sandal- wood. "I had it in my pocket," he mur-
mured, triumphantly, "for a plausible pretext." He
bowed again. "Good-night, sefiora."

Mrs. Gould continued along the corredor away from
her husband's room. The fate of the San Tom6 mine
was lying heavy upon her heart. It was a long time /
now since she had begun to fear it. It had been an
idea. She had watched it with misgivings turning into
a fetish, and now the fetish had grown into a monstrous
and crushing weight. It was as if the inspiration of

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222 NOSTROMO

their early years had left her heart to turn into a wall of
silver-bricks, erected by the silent work of evil spirits,"*
between her and her husband. He seemed to dwell
alone within a circumvallation of precious metal, leav-
ing her outside with her school, her hospital, the sick
mothers and the feeble old men, mere insignificant
vestiges of the initial inspiration. "Those poor peo-
ple!" she murmured to herself.

Below she heard the voice of Martin Decoud in the
patio speaking loudly:

"I have found Dona Antonia's fan, Basilio. Look,
here it is!"

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CHAPTER SEVEN

It was part of what Decoud would have called his
sane materialism that he did not believe in the possi-
bility of friendship between man and woman.

The one exception he allowed confirmed, he main-
tained, that absolute rule. Friendship was possible
between brother and sister, meaning by friendship the
frank unreserve, as before another human being, of
thoughts and sensations; all the objectless and neces-
sary sincerity of one's innermost life trying to re-act
upon the profound sympathies of another existence.

His favourite sister, the handsome, slightly arbitrary
and resolute angel, ruling the father and mother Decoud
in the first-floor apartments of a very fine Parisian
house, was the recipient of Martin Decoud's con-
fidences as to his thoughts, actions, purposes, doubts,
and even failures. ...

"Prepare our little circle in Paris for the birth of
another South American Republic. One more or less,
what does it matter? They may come into the worid
like evil flowers on a hotbed of rotten institutions; but
the seed of this one has germinated in your brother's
brain, and that will be enough for your devoted as-
sent. I am writing this to you by the light of a single
candle, in a sort of inn, near the harbour, kept by an
Italian called Viola, a protSgS of Mrs. Gould. The
whole building, which, for all I know, may have been
contrived by a Conquistador farmer of the pearl
fishery three hundred years ago, is perfectly silent. So
is the plain between the town and the harbour; silent r

223

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224 , NOSTROMO

but not so dark as the house, because the pickets of
Italian workmen guarding the railway have lighted little
fires all along the line. It was not so quiet around here
yesterday. We had an awful riot — a sudden outbreak
of the populace, which was not suppressed till late to-
day. Its object, no doubt, was loot, and that was de-
feated, as you may have learned already from the
cablegram sent via San Francisco and New York last
night, when the cables were still open. You have read
already there that the energetic action of the Europeans
of the railway has saved the town from destruction, and
you may believe that. I wrote out the cable myself.
We have no Renter's agency man here. I have also
fired at the mob from the windows of the club, in com-
pany with some other young men of position. Our
object was to keep the Calle de la Constitucion clear for
the exodus of the ladies and children, who have taken
refuge on board a couple of cargo ships now in the har-
bour here. That was yesterday. You should also
have learned from the cable that the missing President,
Ribiera, who had disappeared after the battle of Sta.
Marta, has turned up here in Sulaco by one of those
strange coincidences that are almost incredible, riding
on a lame mule into the very midst of the street fight-
ing. It appears that he had fled, in company of a
muleteer called Bonifacio, across the mountains from
the threats of Montero into the arms of an dnraged
mob.

"The Capataz of Cargadores, that Italian sailor of
whom I have written to you before, has saved him from
an ignoble death. That man seems to have a particu-
lar talent for being on the spot whenever there is some-
thing picturesque to be done.

"He was with me at four o'clock in the morning at the
oflSces of the Porvenir, where he had turned up so early

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THE ISABELS 225

in order to warn me of the coming trouble, and also to
assure me that he would keep his Cargadores on the
side of order. When the full daylight came we were
looking together at the crowd on foot and on horseback,
demonstrating on the Plaza and shying stones at the
windows of the Intendencia. Nostromo (that is the
name they call him by here) was pointing out to me
his Cargadores interspersed in the mob.

"The Sim shines late upon Sulaco, for it has first to
climb above the moimtains. In that clear morning
light, brighter than twilight, Nostromo saw right across
the vast Plaza, at the end of the street beyond the
cathedral, a moimted man apparently in diflSculties with
a yelling knot of leperos. M once he said to me, ^That's
a stranger. What is it they are doing to him?' Then
he took out the silver whistle he is in the habit of using /
on the wharf (this man seems to disdain the use of any
metal less precious than silver) and blew into it twice,
evidently a preconcerted signal for his Cargadores. He
ran out immediately, and they rallied roimd him. I
ran out, too, but was too late to follow them and help
in the rescue of the stranger, whose animal had fallen.
I was set upon at once as a hated aristocrat, and was
only too glad to get into the club, where Don Jaime
Berges (you may remember him visiting at our house
in Paris some three years ago) thrust a sporting gun into
my hands. They were already firing from the windows.
There were little heaps of cartridges lying about on the
open card-tables. I remember a couple of overturned
chairs, some bottles rolling on the floor amongst the
packs of cards scattered suddenly as the caballeros
rose from their game to open fire upon the mob. Most
of the young men had spent the night at the club in the
expectation of some such disturbance. In two of the
candelabra, on the consoles, the candles were burning

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226 NOSTROMO

down in their sockets. A large iron nut, probably
stolen from the railway workshops, flew in from the
street as I entered, and broke one of the large mirrors
set in the wall. I noticed also one of the club servants
tied up hand and foot with the cords of the curtain and
flung in a comer. I have a vague recollection of Don
Jaime assuring me hastily that the fellow had been
detected putting poison into the dishes at supper. But
I remember distinctly he was shrieking for mercy, with-
out stopping at all, continuously, and so absolutely
disregarded that nobody even took the trouble to gag
him. The noise he made was so disagreeable that I had
half a mind to do it myself. But there was no time to
waste on such trifles. I took my place at one of the
windows and began firing.

"I didn't learn till later in the afternoon whom it was
that Nostromo, with his Cargadores and some Italian
workmen as well, had managed to save from those
drunken rascals. That man has a peculiar talent when
anything striking to the imagination has to be done. I
made that remark to him afterwards when we met after
some sort of order had been restored in the town, and
the answer he made rather surprised me. He said quite
j moodily, *And how much do I get for that, sefior?'
Then it dawned upon me that perhaps this man's vanity
has been satiated by the adulation of the common
people and the confidence of his superiors!"

Decoud paused to light a cigarette, then, with his
head still over his writing, he blew a cloud of smoke,
which seemed to rebound from the paper. He took
up the pencil again.

^ "That was yesterday evening on the Plaza, while he
sat on the steps of the cathedral, his hands between his
knees, holding the bridle of his famous silver-grey mare.
He had led his body of Cargadores splendidly all day

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THE ISABELS 227

long. He looked fatigued. I don't know how I
looked. Very dirty, I suppose. But I suppose I also
looked pleased. From the time the fugitive President
had been got oflF to the S. S. Minerva, the tide of success
had turned against the mob. They had been driven oflF
the harbour, and out of the better streets of the town, in'
to their own maze of ruins and tolderias. You must un-
derstand that this riot, whose primary object was un-
doubtedly the getting hold of the San Tom6 silver
stored in the lower rooms of the Custom House (be-
sides the general looting of the Ricos), had acquired a
political colouring from the fact of two Deputies to the
Provincial Assembly, Sefiores Gamacho and Fuentes,
both from Bolson, putting themselves at the head of
it — late in the afternoon, it is true, when the mob, dis-
appointed in their hopes of loot, made a stand in the
narrow streets to the cries of 'Viva la Libertad! Down
with Feudalism!' (I wonder what they imagine
feudalism to be?) *Down with the Goths and Para-
lytics.* I suppose the Sefiores Gamacho and Fuentes
knew what they were doing. They are prudent gentle-
men. In the Assembly they called themselves Moder-
ates, and opposed every energetic measure with philan-
thropic pensiveness. At the first rumours of Montero's
victory, they showed a subtle change of the pensive
temper, and began to defy poor Don Juste Lopez
in his Presidential tribune with an eflFrontery to which
the poor man could only respond by a dazed smooth-
ing of his beard and the ringing of the presidential
bell. Then, when the downfall of the Ribierist cause
became confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt,
they have blossomed into convinced Liberals, acting
together as if they were Siamese twins, and ultimately
taking charge, as it were, of the riot in the name of
Monterist principles.

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228 NOSTROMO

"Their last move of eight o'clock last night was to
organize themselves into a Monterist Committee which
sits, as far as I know, in a posada kept by a retired
Mexican bull-fighter, a great politician, too, whose
name I have forgotten. Thence they have issued a
communication to us, the Goths and Paralytics of the
Amarilla Club (who have our own committee), inviting
us to come to some provisional understanding for a
truce, in order, they have the impudence to say, that
the noble cause of Liberty ^should not be stained by the
criminal excesses of Conservative selfishness!' As I
came out to sit with Nostromo on the cathedral steps
the club was busy considering a proper reply in the
principal room, littered with exploded cartridges, with
a lot of broken glass, blood smears, candlesticks, and all
sorts of wreckage on the .floor. But all this is non-
sense. Nobody in the town has any real power except
the railway engineers, whose men occupy the dismantled
houses acquired by the Company for their town station
on one side of the Plaza, and Nostromo, whose Carga-
dores were sleeping under the arcades along the front of
Anzani's shops. A fire of broken furniture out of the
Intendencia saloons, mostly gilt, was burning on the
Plaza, in a high flame swaying right upon the statue of
Charles IV. The dead body of a man was lying on the
steps of the j>edestal, his arms thrown wide open, and
his sombrero covering his face — ^the attention of some
friend, perhaps. The light of the flames touched the
foliage of the first trees on the Alameda, and played on
the end of a side street near by, blocked up by a jumble
of ox-carts and dead bullocks. Sitting on one of the
carcases, a lepero, muffled up, smoked a cigarette. It
was a truce, you understand. The only other living
being on the Plaza besides ourselves was a Cargador
walking to and fro, with a long, bare knife in bis hand^

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THE ISABELS 229

like a sentry before the Arcades, where his friends were
sleeping. And the only other spot of light in the dark
town were the lighted windows of the club, at the comer
of the Calle/'

After having written so far, Don Martin Decoud, the
exotic dandy of the Parisian boulevard, got up and
walked across the sanded floor of the cafe at one end of
the Albergo of United Italy, kept by Giorgio Viola, the
old companion of Garibaldi. The highly coloured
lithograph of the Faithful Hero seemed to look dimly,
in the light of one candle, at the man with no faith in i
anything except the truth of his own sensations. Look-
ing out of the window, Decoud was met by a darkness so
impenetrable that he could see neither the mountains
nor the town, nor yet the buildings near the harbour;
and there was not a sound, as if the tremendous ob-
scurity of the Placid Gulf, spreading from the waters
over the land, had made it dumb as well as blind.
Presently Decoud felt a light tremor of the floor and a
distant clank of iron. A bright white light appeared,
deep in the darkness, growing bigger with a thundering
noise. The rolling stock usually kept on the sidings in
Rincon was being run back to the yards for safe keeping.
Like a mysterious stirring of the darkness behind the
headlight of the engine, the train passed in a gust of
hollow uproar, by the end of the house, which seemed to
vibrate all over in response. And nothing was clearly
visible but, on the end of the last flat car, a negro, in
white trousers and naked to the waist, swinging a
blazing torch basket incessantly with a circular move-
ment of his bare arm. Decoud did not stir.

Behind him, on the back of the chair from which he
had risen, hung his elegant Parisian overcoat, with a
pearl-grey silk lining. But when he turned back to
oome to the table the candlelight fell upon a face that

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230 NOSTROMO

was grimy and scratched. His rosy lips were blackened
with heat, the smoke of gmi-powder. Dirt and rust
tarnished the lustre of his short beard. His shirt collar
and cuffs were crumpled; the blue silken tie hung down
his breast like a rag; a greasy smudge crossed his white
brow. He had not taken ofiF his clothing nor used
water, except to snatch a hasty drink greedily, for some
forty hours. An awful restlessness had made him its
own, had marked him with all the s'^ni of desperate
strife, and put a dry, sleepless stare into his eyes. Me
murmured to himself in a hoarse voice; ^^I wonder if
there's any bread here," looked vaguely about him, then
dropped into the chair and took the pencil up again'.
He became aware he had not eaten anything for many
hours.

It occurred to him that no one could understand him
so well as his sister. In the most sceptical heart there
lurks at such moments, when the chances of existence
are involved, a desire to leave? a'*6oiTect impression of
the feelings, like a light by which the action may be
seen when personality is gone, gone where no light of
investigation can ever reach the truth which every
death takes out of the world. Therefore, instead of
looking for something to eat, or trying to snatch an hour
or so of sleep, Decoud was filling the pages of a large
pocket-book with a letter to his sister.

In the intimacy of that intercourse he could not keep
out his weariness, his great fatigue, the close touch of his
bodily sensations. He began again as if he were talking
to her. With almost an illusion of her presence, he
wrote the phrase, " I am very hungry."

"I have the feeling dl a great solitude around me,"
he continued. "Is it, perhaps, because I am the only
man with a definite idea in his head, in the complete
collapse of every resolve, intention, and hope about me?

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THE ISABELS 281

But the solitude is also very real. All the engineers are
cut, and have been for two days, looking after the
property of the National Central Railway, of that
great Costaguana undertaking which is to put money
in.to the pockets of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans,
Germans, and God knows who else. The silence about
me is ominous. There is above the middle part of this
house a sort of^^^st floor, with narrow openings like
loopholes for windows, probably used in old times for
the better defence against the savages, when the per-
sistent barbarism of our native continent did not wear the
black coats of politicians, but went about yelling, half-
naked, with bows and arrows in its hands. The woman
of the house is dying up there, I believe, all alone with
Jier. old husband. There is a narrow staircase, the sort
of staircase one man could easily defend against a mob,
leading up there, and I have just heard, through the
thickness of thi wall, the old fellow going down into
their kitchen for something or other. It was a sort of
noise a mouse might make behind the plaster of a wall.
All the servants they had ran away yesterday and have
not returned yet, if ever they do. For the rest, there
are only two children here, two girls. The father has
sent them downstairs, and they have crept into this
cafe, perhaps because I am here. They huddle together
in a comer, in each other's arms; I just noticed them a
few minutes ago, and I feel more lonely than eve^*"

Decoud turned half roimd in his chair, and asked,
"Is there any bread here?"

Linda's dark head was shaken negatively in response,
above the fair head of her sister nestling on her breast.

"You couldn't get me some bread?" insisted Decoud.
The child did not move; he saw her large eyes stare at
him very dark from the corner. "You're not afraid
of me? " he said.

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232 NOSTROMO

"No," said Linda, "we are not afraid of you. You
came here with Gian' Battista."

"You mean Nostromo?" said Decoud.

"The English call him so, but that is no name either
for man or beast," said the girl, passing her hand gently
over her sister's hair.

"But he lets people call him so," remarked Decoud.

"Not in this house," retorted the child.

"Ah! well, I shall call him the Capataz then."

Decoud gave up the point, and after writing steadily
for a while turned round again.

"When do you expect him back?" he asked.'

"After he brought you here he rode off to fetch the
Seiior Doctor from the town for mother. He will be
back soon."

"He stands a good chance of getting shot somewhere
on the road," Decoud murmured to himself audibly; and
Linda declared in her high-pitched voice —

"Nobody would dare to fire a shot at Gian' Battista."

"You believe that," asked Decoud, "do you?"

"I know it," said the child, with conviction. "There
is no one in this place brave enough to attack Gian'
Battista."

"It doesn't require much bravery to pull a trigger
behind a bush," muttered Decoud to himself. "Fortu-
nately, the night is dark, or there would be but little
chance of saving the silver of the mine."

He turned again to his pocket-book, glanced back
through the pages, and again started his pencil.

"That was the position yesterday, after the Minerva
with the fugitive President had gone out of harbour, and
the rioters had been driven back into the side lanes of
the town. I sat on the steps of the cathedral with
Nostromo, after sending out the cable message for
the information of a mor^ or less attentive wprld.

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THE ISABELS 23S

Strangely enough, though the offices of the Cable
Company are in the same building as the Porvenivy the
mob, which has thrown my presses out of the window
and scattered the type all over the Plaza, has been kept
from interfering with the instruments on the other side
of the courtyard. As I sat talking with Nostromo,
Bernhardt, the telegraphist, came out from under the
Arcades with a piece of paper in his hand. The little
man had tied himself up to an enormous sword and
was hung all over with revolvers. He is ridiculous, but
the bravest German of his size that ever tapped the
key of a Morse transmitter. He had received the
message from Cayta reporting the transports with
Barrios's army just entering the port, and ending with
the words, 'The greatest enthusiasm prevails.' I
walked off to drink some water at the foimtain, and I
was shot at from the Alameda by somebody hiding
behind a tree. But I drank, and didn't care; with
Barrios in Cayta and the great Cordillera between us
and Montero's victorious army I seemed, notwith-
standing Messrs. Gamacho and Fuentes, to hold my
new State in the hollow of my hand. I was ready to
sleep, but when I got as far as the Casa Gould I foimd
the patio full of wounded laid out on straw. Lights
were burning, and in that enclosed courtyard on that
hot night a faint odour of chloroform and blood hung
about. At one end Doctor Monygham, the doctor of
the mine, was dressing the wounds; at the other, near
the stairs. Father Corbelan, kneeling, listened to the
confession of a dying Cargador. Mrs. Gould was
walking about through these shambles with a large
bottle in one hand and a lot of cotton wool in the
other. She just looked at me and never even winked.
Her camerista was following her, also holding a bottle,
and sobbing gently to herself.

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234 NOSTROMO

"I busied myself for some time in fetching water
from the cistern for the wounded. Afterwards I
wandered upstairs, meeting some of the first ladies of
Sulaco, paler than I had ever seen them before, with
bandages over their arms. Not all of them had fled to
the ships. A good many had taken refuge for the day
in the Casa Gould. On the landing a girl, with her hair
half down, was kneeling against the wall under the niche
where stands a Madonna in blue robes and a gilt crown
on her head. I think it was the eldest Miss Lopez;
I couldn't see her face, but I remember looking at the
high French heel of her little shoe. She did not make a
•sound, she did not stir, she was not sobbing; she re-
mained there, perfectly still, all black against the
white wall, a silent figure of passionate piety. I am
sure she was no more frightened than the other white-
faced ladies I met carrying bandages. One was sitting
on the top step tearing a piece of linen hastily into strips
— ^the young wife of an elderly man of fortune here.
She interrupted herself to wave her hand to my bow, as
though she were in her carriage on the Alameda. The
women of our country are worth looking at during a
revolution. The rouge and pearl powder fall ofif, to-
gether with that passive attitude towards the outer
world which education, tradition, custom impose upon
them from the earliest infancy. I thought of your face,
which from your infancy had the stamp of intelligence
instead of that patient and resigned cast which appears
when some political commotion tears down the veil of
cosmetics and usage.

"In the great sala upstairs a sort of Junta of Notables
was sitting, the remnant of the vanished Provincial
Assembly. Don Juste Lopez had had half his beard
singed off at the muzzle of a trabuco loaded with slugs,
of which every one missed him, providentially. And as

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THE ISABELS 235

he turned his head from side to side it was exactly
as if there had been two men inside his frock-coat, one
nobly whiskered and solenm, the other untidy and
scared.

"They raised a cry of 'Decoud! Don Martin!' at
my entrance. I asked them, *What are you deliberating
upon, gentlemen?' There did not seem to be any
president, though Don Jose Avellanos sat at the head of
the table. They all answered together, *0n the preser-
vation of life and property.' *Till the new oflScials
arrive,' Don Juste explained to me, with the solemn
side of his face offered to my view. It was as if a
stream of water had been poured upon my glowing idea
of a new State. There was a hissing soimd in my ears,
and the room grew dim, as if suddenly filled with va-
pour.

"I walked up to the table blindly, as though I had
been drunk. *You are deliberating upon surrender,'
I said. They all sat still, with their noses over the
sheet of paper each had before him, God only knows
why. Only Don Jose hid his face in his hands, mut-
tering, *Never, never!' But as I looked at him, it
seemed to me that I could have blown him away with
my breath, he looked so frail, so weak, so worn out.
Whatever happens, he will not survive. The deception
is too great for a man of his age; and hasn't he seen the
sheets of Tifty Years of Misrule,' which we have begun
printing on the presses of the Porveniry littering the
Plaza, floating in the gutters, fired out as wads for
trabucos loaded with handfuls of type, blown in the
wind, trampled in the mud? I have seen pages float-
ing upon the very waters of the harbour. It would be
unreasonable to expect him to survive. It would be
cruel.

"*Do you know,' I cried, *what surrender meanif

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236 NOSTROMO

to you, to your women, to your chUdren, to yom
property?'

"I declaimed for five minutes without drawing
breath, it seems to me, harping on our best chances, on
the ferocity of Montero, whom I made out to be as
great a beast as I have no doubt he would like to be if he
had intelligence enough to conceive a systematic reign
of terror. And then for another five minutes or more
I poured out an impassioned appeal to their courage
and manliness, with all the passion of my love for
Antonia. For if ever man spoke well, it would be from
a personal feeling, denouncing an enemy, defending him-
self, or pleading for what really may be dearer than
life. My dear girl, I absolutely thundered at them. It
seemed as if my voice would burst the walls asimder,
and when I stopped I saw all their scared eyes looking
at me dubiously. And that was all the effect I had
produced! Only Don Jose's head had sunk lower and
lower on his breast. I bent my ear to his withered lips,
and made out his whisper, something like, *In God's
name, then, Martin, my son!' I don't know exactly.
There was the name of God in it, I am certain. It
seems to me I have caught his last breath — the breath
of his departing soul on his lips.

"He lives yet, it is true. I have seen him since; but
it was only a senile body, lying on its back, covered to
the chin, with open eyes, and so still that you might
have said it was breathing no longer. I left him thus,
with Antonia kneeling by the side of the bed, just be-
fore I came to this Italian's posada, where the ubiqui-
tous death is also waiting. But I know that Don Jose
has really died there, in the Casa Gould, with that
whisper urging me to attempt what no doubt his soul,
wrapped up in the sanctity of diplomatic treaties and
solemn declarations, must have abhorred. I had ex-

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THE ISABELS 237

claimed very loud, 'There is never any God in a country
where men will not help themselves/

"Meanwhile, Don Juste had begun a pondered ora-
tion whose solemn eflfect was spoiled by the ridiculous
disaster to his beard. I did not wait to make it out.
He seemed to argue that Montero's (he called him The
General) intentions were probably not evil, though, he
went on, *that distinguished man' (only a week ago we
used to call him a grarC bestia) Vas perhaps mistaken
as to the true means.' As you may imagine, I didn't
stay to hear the rest. I know the intentions of Mon-
tero's brother, Pedrito, the guerrillero, whom I ex-
posed in Paris, some years ago, in a cafe frequented by
South American students, where he tried to pass himself
off for a Secretary of Legation. He used to come in
and talk for hours, twisting his felt hat in his hairy
paws, and his ambition seemed to become a sort of
Due de Momy to a sort of Napoleon. Already, then,
he used to talk of his brother in inflated terms. He
seemed fairly safe from being found out, because the
students, all of the Blanco families, did not, as you may
imagine, frequent the Legation. It was only Decoud,
a man without faith and principles, as they used to say,
that went in there sometimes for the sake of the fun, as
it were to an assembly of trained monkeysl I know his
intentions. I have seen him change the plates at table.
Whoever is allowed to live on in terror, I must die the
death.

"No, I didn't stay to the end to hear Don Juste Lopez
trying to persuade himself in a grave oration of the
clemency and justice, and honesty, and purity of the
brothers Montero. I went out abruptly to seek
Antonia. I saw her in the gallery. As I opened the
door, she extended to me her clasped hands.

"*What are they doing in there?' she asked.

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288 NOSTROMO

" 'Talking/ I said, with my eyes looking into hefd.

"'Yes, yes, but '

"'Empty speeches,' I interrupted her. 'Hiding
their fears behind imbecile hopes. They are all great
Parliamentarians there — on the English model, as you
know.' I was so furious that I could hardly speak.
She made a gesture of despair.

"Through the door I held a little ajar behind me, we
heard Don Juste's measured mouthing monotone go on
from phrase to phrase, like a sort of awful and solenm
madness.

" 'After all, the Democratic aspirations have, perhaps,
their legitimacy. The ways of human progress are
inscrutable, and if the fate of the country is in the hand
of Montero, we ought '

"I crashed the door to on that; it was enough; it was
too much. There was never a beautiful face expressing
more horror and despair than the face of Antonia. I
couldn't bear it; I seized her wrists.

"'Have they killed my father in there?' she asked.

"Her eyes blazed with indignation, but as I looked
on, fascinated, the light in them went out.

"'It is a surrender,' I said. And I remember I was
shaking her wrists I held apart in my hands. 'But it's
more than talk. Your father told me to go on in God's
name.'

"My dear girl, there is that in Antonia which would
make me believe in the feasibility of anything. One
look at her face is enough to set my brain on fire. And
yet I love her as any other man would — ^with the heart,
and with that alone. She is more to me than his Church
to Father Corbelan (the Grand Vicar disappeared last
night from the town; perhaps gone to join the band
of Hernandez). She is more to me than his precious
mine to that sentimental Englishman. I won't speak

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THE ISABELS 889

of his wife. She may have been sentimental once.
The San Tome mine stands now between those two peo-
ple. *Your father himself, Antonia,' I repeated; your
father, do you understand? has told me to go on.*

"She averted her face, and in a pained voice —

"'He has?' she cried. *Then, indeed, I fear he will
never speak again.'

"She freed her wrists from my clutch and began to
cry in her handkerchief. I disregarded her sorrow; I
would rather see her miserable than not see her at all,
never any more; for whether I escaped or stayed to die,
there was for us no coming together, no futiu^. And
that being so, I had no pity to waste upon the passing
moments of her sorrow. I sent her off in tears to fetch
Dofla Emilia and Don Carios, too. Their sentiment
was necessary to the very life of my plan; the senti-
mentalism of the people that will never do anything for
the sake of their passionate desire, unless it comes to
them clothed in the fair robes of an idea.

"Late at night we formed a small jimta of four — ^the
two women, Don Carios, and myself — in Mrs. Gould's
blue-and-white boudoir. ^

"El Rey de Sulaco thinks himself, no doubt, a very
honest man. And so he is, if one could look behind his
taciturnity. Perhaps he thinks that this alone makes
his honesty unstained. Those Englishmen live on ^
illusions which somehow or other help them to get a J
firm hold of the substance. When he speaks it is by
a rare 'y^s' or *no' that seems as impersonal as the
words of an oracle. But he could not impose on me by
his dumb reserve. I knew what he had in his head; he
has his mine in his head; and his wife had nothing in her
head but his precious person, which he has bound up
with the Gould Concession and tied up to that little
Woman's neck. No matter. The thing was to make

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240 NOSTROMO

him present the affair to Holroyd (the Steel and Silver
King) in such a manner as to secure his financial sup-
port. At that time last night, just twenty-four hours
ago, we thought the silver of the mine safe in the
Custom House vaults till the north-bound steamer
came to take it away. And as long as the treasure
flowed north, without a break, that utter sentimentalist,
Holroyd, would not drop his idea of introducing, not
only justice, industry, peace, to the benighted con-
tinents, but also that pet dream of his of a purer form of
Christianity. Later on, the principal European really
in Sulaco, the engineer-in-chief of the railway, came
riding up the Calle, from the harbour, and was admitted
to our conclave. Meantime, the Junta of the Notable^s
in the great sala was still deliberating; only, one of them
had run out in the corredor to ask the servant whether
something to eat couldn't be sent in. The first words
the engineer-in-chief said as he came into the boudoir
were, *What is your house, dear Mrs. Gould? A war
hospital below, and apparently a restaurant above. I
saw them carrying trays full of good things into the
sala.'

" *And here, in tjiis boudoir,' I said, *yo^ behold the
inner cabinet of the Occidental Republic that is to be.'
"He was so preoccupied that he didn't smile at that,
he didn't even look surprised.

"He told us that he was attending to the general
dispositions for the defence of the railway property at
the railway yards when he was sent for to go into the
railway telegraph oflSce. The engineer of the railhead,
at the foot of the mountains, wanted to talk to him from
his end of the wire. There was nobody in the oflSce
but himself and the operator of the railway telegraphy
who read off the clicks aloud as the tape coiled its
length upon the floor. And the purport of that talk.

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THE ISABELS 24T

dicked nervously from a wooden shed in the depths of
the forests, had informed the chief that President
Ribiera had been, or was being, pursued. This was
news, indeed, to all of us in Sulaco. Ribiera himself,
when rescued, revived, and soothed by us, had been in-
clined to think that he had not been pursued.

"Ribiera had yielded to the urgent solicitations of
his friends, and had left the headquarters of his dis-
comfited army alone, under the guidance of Bonifacio,
the muleteer, who had been willing to take the re-
sponsibility with the risk. He had departed at day-)
break of the third day. His remaining forces had
melted away during the night. Bonifacio and he rode
hard on horses towards the Cordillera; then they ob-
tained mules, entered the passes, and crossed the
Paramo of Ivie just before a freezing blast swept over
that stony plateau, burying in a drift of snow the little
shelter-hut of stones in which they had spent the night.
Afterwards poor Ribiera had many adventures, got
separated from his guide, lost his mount, struggled down
to the Campo on foot, and if he had not thrown himself
on the mercy of a ranchero would have perished a long
way from Sulaco. That man, who, as a matter of fact,
recognized him at once, let him have a fresh mule, which
the fugitive, heavy and imskilful, had ridden to death.
And it was true he had been pursued by a party com-
manded by no less a person than Pedro Montero, the
brother of the general. The cold wind of the Paramo
luckily caught the pursuers on the top of the pass.
Some few men, and all the animals, perished in the icy
blast. The stragglers died, but the main body kept on.
They found poor Bonifacio lying half-dead at the foot
of a snow slope, and bayoneted him promptly in the
true Civil War style. They would have had Ribiera,
ioo, if they had not, for some reason or other, turned off

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242 NOSTROMO

the track of the old Camino Real, only to lose their way
in the forests at the foot of the lower slopes. And
there they were at last, having stumbled in unex-
pectedly upon the construction camp. The engineer at
the railhead told his chief by wire that he had Pedro
Montero absolutely there, in the very office, listening
to the clicks. He was going to take possession of Suiaco
in the name of the Democracy. He was very overbear-
ing. His men slaughtered some of the Railway Com-
pany's cattle without asking leave, and went to work
broiling the meat on the embers. Pedrito made many
pointed inquiries as to the silver mine, and what had
become of the product of the last six months' working.
He had said peremptorily, "Ask your chief up there by
wire, he ought to know; tell him that Don Pedro
Montero, Chief of the Campo and Minister of the
Interior of the new Government, desires to be correctly
informed.'

"He had his feet wrapped up in blood-stained rags, a
lean, haggard face, ragged beard and hair, and had
walked in limping, with a crooked branch of a tree for
a staff. His followers were perhaps in a worse plight,
but apparently they had not thrown away their arms,
and, at any rate, not all their ammimition. Their lean
faces filled the door and the windows of the telegraph
hut. As it was at the same time the bedroom of the
engineer-in-charge there, Montero had thrown himself
on his clean blankets and lay there shivering and dic-
tating requisitions to be transmitted by wire to Suiaco.
He demanded a train of cars to be sent down at once to
transport his men up.

"*To this I answered from my end,' the engineer-in-
chief related to us, 'that I dared not risk the rolling-
stock in the interior, as there had been attempts to
wreck trains all along the line several times. I did that

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THE ISABELS 343

foryoursake, Gould/ said the chief engineer. *The answer
to this was, in the words of my subordinate, "The filthy
brute on my bed said, ^Suppose I were to have you
shot?'" To which my subordinate, who, it appears,
was himself operating, remarked that it would not
bring the cars up. Upon that, the other, yawning,
said, "Never mind, there is no lack of horses on the
Campo." And, turning over, went to sleep on Harris's
bed.'

"This is why, my dear girl, I am a fugitive to-night.
The last wire from railhead says that Pedro Montero
and his men left at daybreak, after feeding on asado
beef all night. They took all the horses; they will find
more on the road; they'll be here in less than thirty
hours, and thus Sulaco is no place either for me or the
great store of silver belonging to the Gould Concession.

"But that is not the worst. The garrison of Esmer-
alda has gone over to the victorious party. We have
heard this by means of the telegraphist of the Cable
Company, who came to the Casa Gould in the early
morning with the news. In fact, it was so early that
the day had not yet quite broken over Sulaco. His
colleague in Esmeralda had called him up to say that
the garrison, after shooting some of their oflScers, had
taken possession of a Government steamer laid up in
the harbour. It is really a heavy blow for me. I
thought I could depend on every man in this province.
It was a mistake. It was a Monterist Revolution in
Esmeralda, just such as was attempted in Sulaco, only
that that one came ofif . The telegraphist was signalling
to Bernhardt all the time, and his last transmitted
words were, *They are bursting in the door, and taking
possession of the cable oflSce. You are cut off. Can
do no more.'

"But, as a matter of fact, he managed somehow to

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^44 NOSTEOMO

escape the vigilance of his captors, who had tried to
stop the communication with the outer world. He did
manage it. How it was done I don't know, but a few
hours afterwards he called up Sulaco again, and what
he said was, *The insurgent army has taken possession
of the Government transport in the bay and are filling
her with troops, with the intention of going round the
coast to Sulaco. Therefore look out for yourselves.
They will be ready to ^tart in a few hours, and may be
upon you before daybreak.'

" This is all he could say. They drove him away from
his instrument this time for good, because Bernhardt
has been calling up Esmeralda ever since without get-
ting an answer."

After setting these words down in the pocket-book
which he was filling up for the benefit of his sister, Decoud
lifted his head to listen. But there were no sounds,
neither in the room nor in the house, except the drip of
the water from the filter into the vast earthenware jar
under the wooden stand. And outside the house there
was a great silence. Decoud lowered his head again
over the pocket-book.

"I am not running away, you understand," he wrote
on. "I am simply going away with that great treasure
of silver which must be saved at all costs. Pedro
Montero from the Campo and the revolted garrison of
Esmeralda from the sea are converging upon it. That
it is there lying ready for them is only an accident. The
real objective is the San Tom^ mine itself, as you may
well imagine; otherwise the Occidental Province would
have been, no doubt, left alone for many weeks, to be
gathered at leisure into the arms of the victorious party.
Don Carlos Gould will have enough to do to save his
mine, with its organization and its people; this Tm-
perium in Imperio,' this wealth-producing thing, to

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THE ISABELS 245

which his sentimentalisin attaches a strange idea of /
justice. He holds to it as some men hold to the idea of
love or revenge. Unless I am much mistaken in the
man, it must remain inviolate or perish by an act of his
will alone. A passion has crept into his cold and
idealistic life. A passion which I can only comprehend
intellectually. A passion that is not like the passions
we know, we men of another blood. But it is as
dangerous as any of ours.

"His wife has understood it, too. That is why she is
such a good ally of mine. She seizes upon all my sug-
gestions with a sure instinct that in the end they make
for the Safety of the Gould Concession. And he defers
to her because he trusts her perhaps, but I fancy
rather as if he wished to make up for some subtle wrong,
for that sentimental unfaithfulness which surrenders
her happiness, her life, to the seduction of an idea. The
little woman has discovered that he lives for the mine
rather than for her. But let them be. To each his
fate, shaped by passion or sentiment. The principal/
thing is that she has backed up my advice to get the
silver out of the town, out of the country, at once, at
any cost, at any risk. Don Carlos' mission is to pre-
serve unstained the fair fame of his mine; Mrs. Gould's
mission is to save him from the effects of that cold and
overmastering passion, which she dreads more than if it
were an infatuation for another woman. Nostromo's
mission is to save the silver. The plan is to load it into
the largest of the Company's lighters, and send it across
the gulf to a small port out of Costaguana territory just
on the other side the Azuera, where the first north-
bound steamer will get orders to pick it up. The
waters here are calm. We shall slip away into the dark-
ness of the gulf before the Esmeralda rebels arrive; and
by the time the day breaks over the ocean we shall be

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246 NOSTROMO

out of sight, invisible, hidden by Azuera, which itself
looks from the Sulaco shore like a faint blue cloud on the
horizon.

"The incorruptible Capataz de Cargadores is the man
for that work; and I, the man with a passion, but with-
out a mission, I go with him to return— to play my part
in the farce to the end, and, if successful, to receive my
reward, which no one but Antonia can give me.

"I shall not see her again now before I depart. I
left her, as I have said, by Don Jos6's bedside. The
street was dark, the houses shut up, and I walked out
of the town in the night. Not a single street-lamp had
been lit for two days, and the archway of the gate was
only a mass of darkness in the vague form of a tower, in
which I heard low, dismal groans, that seemed to answer
the murmurs of a man's voice.

"I recognized something impassive and careless in its
tone,' characteristic of that Genoese sailor who, like me,
has come casually here to be drawn into the events for
which his scepticism as well as mine seems to entertain
a sort of passive contempt. The only thing he seems to
care for, as far as I have been able to discover, is to be
well spoken of. An ambition fit for noble souls, buf
also a profitable one for an exceptionally intelligent
scoundrel. Yes. His very words, *To be well spoken
of. Si, seftor.' He does not seem to make any dif-
ference between speaking and thinking. Is it sheer
naiveness or the practical point of view, I wonder?
Exceptional individualities always interest me, because
they are true to the general formula expressing the
moral state of humanity.

"He joined me on the harbour road after I had
passed them under the dark archway without stoppii\g.
It was a woman in trouble he had been talking to.
Through discretion I kept silent while he walked by my

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THE ISABELS 247

side. After a time he began to talk himself. It was
not what I expected. It was only an old woman, an
old lace-maker, in search of her son, one of the street-
sweepers employed by the municipality. Friends had
come the day before at daybreak to the door of their
hovel calling him out. He had gone with them, and
she had not seen him since; so she had left the food she
had been preparing half-cooked on the extinct embers
and had crawled out as far as the harbour, where she
had heard that some town mozos had been killed on the
morning of the riot. One of the Cargadores guarding
the Custom House had brought out a lantern, and had
helped her to look at the few dead left lying about there.
Now she was creeping back, having failed in her search.
So she sat down on the stone seat under the arch, moan-
ing, because she was very tired. The Capataz had
questioned her, and after hearing her broken and groan-
ing tale had advised her to go and look amongst the
wounded in the patio of the Casa Gould. He had also
given her a quarter dollar, he mentioned carelessly.

'**Why did you do that?* I asked. *Do you know
her?'

"*No, senor. I don't suppose I have ever seen her
before. How should I? She has not probably been
out in the streets for years. She is one of those old
women that you find in this coimtry at the back of huts,
crouching over fireplaces, with a stick on the ground by
their side, and almost too feeble to drive away the
stray dogs from their cooking-pots. Caramba! I
could tell by her voice that death had forgotten her.
But, old or young, they like money, and will speak well
of the man who gives it to them.' He laughed a little.
'Sefior, you should have felt the clutch of her paw as I
put the piece in her palm.' He paused. 'My last, too,'
he added.

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248 NOSTROMO

"I made no comment. He's known for his liberality
and his bad luck at the game of monte, which keeps him
as poor as when he first came here.

" 'I suppose, Don Martin,' he began, in a thoughtful,
speculative tone, 'that the Sefior Administrador of San
Tome will reward me some day if I save his silver?'

"I said that it could not be otherwise, surely. He
walked on, muttering to himself. *Si, si, without doubt,
without doubt; and, look you, Sefior Martin, what it is
to be well spoken of! There is not another man that
could have been even thought of for such a thing. I
shall get something great for it some day. And let it
come soon,' he mumbled. 'Time passes in this country
as quick as anywhere else.'

"This, s(Bur cherie, is my companion in the great
escape for the sake of the great cause. He is more naive
than shrewd, more masterful than crafty, more generous
with his personality than the people who make use of
him are with their money. At least, that is what he
thinks himself with more pride than sentiment. I am
glad I have made friends with him. Asa companion
he acquires more importance than he ever had as a sort
of minor genius in his way — ^as an original Italian sailor
whom I allowed to come in in the small hours and talk
familiarly to the editor of the Porvenir while the paper
was going through the press. And it is curious to have
met a man for whom the value of life seems to consist
in personal prestige.

"I am waiting for him here now. On arriving at
the posada kept by Viola we foimd the children alone
down below, and the old Genoese shouted to his
countryman to go and fetch the doctor. Otherwise we
would have gone on to the wharf, where it appears
Captain Mitchell with some volunteer Europeans and a
few picked Cargadores are loading the lighter with the

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THE ISABELS 249

sflver that must be saved from Montero's clutches in
order to be used for Montero's defeat. Nostromo
galloped furiously back towards the town. He has
been long gone already. This delay gives me time to
talk to you. By the time this pocket-book reaches
your hands much will have happened. But now it is a
pause under tie hovering wing of death in this silent
house buried in the black night, with this dying woman,
the two children crouching without a sound, and that
old man whom I can hear through the thickness of the
wall passing up and down with a light rubbing noise
no louder than a mouse. And I, the only other with
them, don't really know whether to count myself with
the living or with the dead. ^Quien sabe?^ as the people
here are prone to say in answer to every question. But
no! feeling for you is certainly not dead, and the whole
thing, the house, the dark night, the silent children in
this dim room, my very presence here — all this is life,
must be life, since it is so much like a dream.'*

With the writing of the last line there came upon
Decoud a moment of sudden and complete oblivion.
He swayed over the table as if struck by a bullet. The
next moment he sat up, confused, with the idea that he
had heard his pencil roll on the floor. The low door of
the caf 6, wide open, was filled with the glare of a torch in
which was visible half of a horse, switching its tail
against the leg of a rider with a long iron spur strapped
to the naked heel. The two girls were gone, and
Nostromo, standing in the middle of the room, looked
at him from under the round brim of the sombrero low
down over his brow.

"I have brought that sour-faced English doctor in
Sefiora Gould's carriage," said Nostromo. "I doubt if,
with all his wisdom, he can save the Padrona this time.
They have sent for the children. A bad sign that."

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250 NOSTROMO

He sat down on the end of a bench. "She wants to
give them her blessing, I suppose."

Dazedly Decoud observed that he must have fallen
soimd asleep, and Nostromo said, with a vague smile,
that he had looked in at the window and had seen him
lying still across the table with his head on his arms.
The English sefiora had also come in the carriage, and
went upstairs at once with the doctor. She had told
him not to wake up Don Martin yet; but when they sent
for the children he had come into the caf6.

The half of the horse with its half of the rider swung
round outside the door; the torch of tow and resin in the
iron basket which was carried on a stick at the saddle-
bow flared right into the room for a moment, and Mrs.
Gould entered hastily with a very white, tired face.
The hood of her dark, blue cloak had fallen back. Both
men rose.

"Teresa wants to see you, Nostromo," she said.

The Capataz did not move. Decoud, with his back
to the table, began to button up his coat.

"The silver, Mrs. Gould, the silver," he murmured in
English. "Don't forget that the Esmeralda garrison
have got a steamer. They may appear at any moment
at the harbour entrance."

"The doctor says there is no hope," Mrs. Gould spoke
rapidly, also in English. "I shall take you down to the
wharf in my carriage and then come back to fetch away
the girls." She changed swiftly into Spanish to address
Nostromo. "Why are you wasting time? Old Gior-
gio's wife wishes to see you."

"I am going to her, senora," muttered the Capataz.

Dr. Monygham now showed himself, bringing back
the children. To Mrs. Gould's inquiring glance he only
shook his head and went outside at once, followed by
Nostromo.

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THE ISABELS 251

The horse of the torch-bearer, motionless, hung his
head low, and the rider had dropped the reins to light
a cigarette. The glare of the torch played on the front
of the house crossed by the big black letters of its in-
scription in which only the word Italia was lighted
fully. The patch of wavering glare reached as far as
Mrs. Gould's carriage waiting on the road, with the
yellow-faced, portly Ignacio apparently dozing on the
box. By his side Basilio, dark and skinny, held a
Winchester carbine in front of him, with both hands,
and peered fearfully into the darkness. Nostromo
touched lightly the doctor's shoulder.

"Is she really dying, senor doctor?'*

"Yes," said the doctor, with a strange twitch of his
scarred cheek. "And why she wants to see you I can-
not imagine."

"She has been like that before," suggested Nostromo,
looking away.

"Well, Capataz, I can assure you she will never be
like that again," snarled Dr. Monygham. "You may
^o to her or stay away. There is very little to be got
from talking to the dying. But she told Dofia Emilia
in my hearing that she has been like a mother to you
ever since you first set foot ashore here."

"Si! And she never had a good word to say for me
to anybody. It is more as if she could not forgive me
for being alive, and such a man, too, as she would have
liked her son to be."

"Maybe!" exclaimed a mournful deep voice near
them. "Women have their own ways of tormenting
themselves." Giorgio Viola had come out of the house.
He threw a heavy black shadow in the torchlight, and
the glare fell on his big face, on the great bushy head of
white hair. He motioned the Capataz indoors with
his extended arm.

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252 NOSTROMO

Dr. Monygham, after busying himself with a little
medicament box of polished wood on the seat of the
landau, turned to old Giorgio and thrust into his big,
trembling hand one of the glass-stoppered bottles out
of the case.

"Give her a spoonful of this now and then, in water,"
he said. "It will make her easier."

"And there is nothing more for her?" asked the old
man, patiently.

"No. Not on earth," said the doctor, with his back
to him, cUcking the lock of the medicine case.

Nostromo slowly crossed the large kitchen, all dark
but for the glow of a heap of charcoal under the heavy
mantel of the cooking-range, where water was boiling in
an iron pot with a loud bubbling sound. Between the
two walls of a narrow staircase a bright light streamed
from the sick-room above; and the magnificent Capataz
de Cargadores stepping noiselessly, in soft leather
sandals, bushy whiskered, his muscular neck and
bronzed chest bare in the open check shirt, resembled
a Mediterranean sailor just come ashore from some
wine or fruit-laden felucca. At the top he paused,
broad shouldered, narrow hipped and supple, looking
at the large bed, like a white couch of state, with a
profusion of snowy linen, amongst which the Padrona
sat unpropped and bowed, her handsome, black-browed
face bent over her chest. A mass of raven hair with
only a few white threads in it covered her shoulders;
one thick strand fallen forward half veiled her cheek.
Perfectly motionless in that pose, expressing physical
anxiety and unrest, she turned her eyes alone towards
Nostromo.

The Capataz had a red sash wound many times round
his waist, and a heavy silver ring on the forefinger of the
hand he raised to give a twist to his moustache.

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THE ISABELS 25f^

"Their revolutions, their revolutions," gasped Seiiora
Teresa. "Look, Gian' Battista, it has killed me at
last!"

Nostromo said nothing, and the sick woman with an
upward glance insisted. "Look, this one has killed
me, while you were away fighting for what did not
concern you, foolish man."

"Why talk like this?" mumbled the Capataz between
his teeth. "Will you never believe in my good sense?
It concerns me to keep on being what I am: every day
alike."

"You never change, indeed," she said, bitterly. "Al-
ways thinking of yourself and taking your pay out in
fine words from those who care nothing for you."

There was between them an intimacy of antagonism
as close in its way as the intimacy of accord and af-
fection. He had not walked along the way of Teresa's
expectations. It was she who had encouraged him to
leave his ship, in the hope of securing a friend and de-
fender for the girls. The wife of old Giorgio was aware
of her precarious health, and was haunted by the fear
of her aged husband's loneliness and the unprotected
state of the children. She had wanted to annex that ap-
parently quiet and steady young man, affectionate and
pliable, an orphan from his tenderest age, as he had
told her, with no ties in Italy except an uncle, owner
and master of a felucca, from whose ill-usage he had
run away before he was fourteen. He had seemed to
her courageous, a hard worker, determined to make his
way in the world. From gratitude and the ties of
habit he would become like a son to herself and Giorgio;
and then, who knows, when Linda had grown up. . . .
Ten years' difference between husband and wife was not
so much. Her own great man was nearly twenty years
older than herself. Gian' Battista was an attractive

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254 NOSTROMO

young fellow, besides; attractive to men, women, and
children, just by that profound quietness of personality
which, like a serene twilight, rendered more seductive
the promise of his vigorous form and the resolution of
his conduct.

Old Giorgio, in profound ignorance of his wife's views
and hopes, had a great regard for his young countryman.
"A man ought not to be tame," he used to tell her,
quoting the Spanish proverb in defence of the splendid
Capataz. She was growing jealous of his success. He
was escaping from her, she feared. She was practical,
and he seemed to her to be an absurd spendthrift
of these qualities which made him so valuable. He got
too little for them. He scattered them with both
hands amongst too many people, she thought. He laid
no money by. She railed at his poverty, his exploits,
his adventures, his loves and his reputation; but in her
heart she had never given him up, as though, indeed, he
had been her son.

Even now, ill as she was, ill enough to feel the chill,
black breath of the approaching end, she had wished to
see him. It was like putting out her benumbed hand to
regain her hold. But she had presumed too much on
her strength. She could not command her thoughts;
they had become dim, like her vision. The words fal-
tered on her lips, and only the paramount anxiety and
desire of her life seemed to be too strong for death.

The Capataz said, "I have heard these things many
times. You are unjust, but it does not hurt me. Only
now you do not seem to have much strength to talk, and
I have but little time to listen. I am engaged in a work
of very great moment."

She made an effort to ask him whether it was true that
he had found time to go and fetch a doctor for her.
Nostromo podded affirmatively.

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THE ISABELS 256

She was pleased: it relieved her sufferings to know
that the man had condescended to do so much for those
who really wanted his help. It was a proof of his
friendship. Her voice become stronger, i

"I want a priest more than a doctor," she said,
pathetically. She did not move her head; only her
eyes ran into the corners to watch the Capataz
standing by the side of her bed. "Would you go to
fetch a priest for me now? Think! A dying woman
asks you!"

Nostromo shook his head resolutely. He did not
believe in priests in their sacerdotal character. A
doctor was an eflScacious person; but a priest, as priest,
was nothing, incapable of doing either good or harm.
Nostromo did not even dislike the sight of them as old
Giorgio did. The utter uselessness of the errand was
what struck him most.

"Padrona," he said, "you have been like this before,
and got better after a few days. I have given you
already the very last moments I can spare. Ask
Senora Gould to send you one."

He was feeling uneasy at the impiety of this refusal.
The Padrona believed in priests, and confessed herself
to them. But all women did that. It could not be of
much consequence. And yet his heart felt oppressed
for a moment — at the thought what absolution would
mean to her if she believed in it only ever so little. No
matter. It was quite true that he had given her already
the very last moment he could spare.

"You refuse to go?" she gasped. "Ah! you are
always yourself, indeed."

"Listen to reason, Padrona," he said. "I am needed |
to save the silver of the mine. Do you hear? A ;
greater treasure than the one which they say is guarded
by ghosts and devils on Azuera. It is true. I am re-

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«56 NOSTROMO

solved to make this the most desperate aflFau' I was
ever engaged on in my whole life/'

She felt a despairing indignation. The supreme test
had failed. Standing above her, Nostromo did not
see the distorted features of her face, distorted by a
paroxysm of pain and anger. Only she began to
tremble all over. Her bowed head shook. The broad
shoulders quivered.

"Then God, perhaps, will have mercy upon me!
But do you look to it, man, that you get something for
yourself out of it, besides the remorse that shall over-
take you some day."

She laughed feebly. "Get riches at least for once,
you indispensable, admired Gian' Battista, to whom
the peace of a dying woman is less than the praise of
people who have given you a silly name — ^and nothing
besides — in exchange for your soul and body."

The Capataz de Cargadores swore to himself under
his breath.

"Leave my soul alone, Padrona, and I shall know
how to take care of my body. Where is the harm of
people having need of me? What are you envying me
that I have robbed you and the children of? Those
very people you are throwing in my teeth have done
more for old Giorgio than they ever thought of doing
for me."

He struck his breast with his open palm; his
voice had remained low though he had spoken in a
forcible tone. He twisted his moustaches one after
another, and his eyes wandered a little about the
room.

"Is it my fault that I am the only man for their pur-
poses? \^at angry nonsense are you talking, mother?
Would you rather have me timid and foolish, selling
water-melons on the market-place or rowing a boat for

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THE ISABELS i&l

passengers along the harbour, like a soft Neapolitan with-
out courage or reputation? Would you have a young
man live like a monk? I do not believe it. Would you
want a monk for your eldest girl? Let her grow. \^at
are you afraid of? You have been angry with me for
eveiything I did for years; ever since you first spoke to
me, in secret from old Giorgio, about your Linda. Hus-
band to one and brother to the other, did you say?
Well, why not! I like the little ones, and a man must
marry some time. But ever since that time you have
been making little of me to everyone. Why? Did you
think you could put a collar and chain on me as if I were
one of the watch-dogs they keep over there in the rail-
way yards? Look here, Padrona, I am the same man
who came ashore one evening and sat down in the
thatched ranche you lived in at that time on the other
side of .the town and told you all about himself. You
were not unjust to me then. What has happened since?
I am no longer an insignificant youth. A good name,
Giorgio says, is a treasure, Padrona."

"They have turned your head with their praises,"
gaspied the sick woman. "They have been paying you
with words. Your folly shall betray you into poverty,
misery, starvation. The very leperos shall laugh at
you — the great Capataz."

Nostromo stood for a time as if struck dumb. She
never looked at him. A self-confident, mirthless smile
passed quickly from his lips, and then he backed away.
His disregarded figure sank down beyond the doorway.
He descended the stairs backwards, with the usual sense
of having been somehow baffled by this woman's dis-
paragement of this reputation he had obtained and
desired to keep.

Downstairs in the big kitchen a candle was burning,
surrounded by the shadows of the walls, of the ceiling.

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258 NOSTROMO

but no ruddy glare filled the open square of the outer
door. The carriage with Mrs. Gould and Don Martin,
preceded by the horseman bearing the torch, had gone
on to the jetty. Dr. Monygham, who had remained,
sat on the comer of a hard wood table near the candle-
stick, his seamed, shaven face inclined sideways, his
arms crossed on his breast, his lips pursed up, and his
prominent eyes glaring stonily upon the floor of black
earth. Near the overhanging mantel of the fireplace,
where the pot of water was still boiling violently, old
Giorgio held his chin in his hand, one foot advanced, as
if arrested by a sudden thought.

^'Adios, viejoy*^ said Nostromo, feeling the handle of
his revolver in the belt and loosening his knife in its
sheath. He picked up a blue poncho lined with red
from the table, and put it over his head. " Adios, look
after the things in my sleeping-room, and if you hear
from me no more, give up the box to Paquita. There
V is not much of value there, except my new scrape from
Mexico, and a few silver buttons on my best jacket.
No matter! The things will look well enough on the
next lover she gets, and the man need not be afraid I
shall linger on earth after I am dead, like those Gringos
that haunt the Azuera."

Dr. Monygham twisted his lips into a bitter smile.
After old Giorgio, with an almost imperceptible nod and
without a word, had gone up the narrow stairs, he
said —

"Why, Capataz! I thought you could never fail in
anything.'*

Nostromo, glancing contemptuously at the doctor,
lingered in the doorway rolling a cigarette, then struck a
match, and, after lighting it, held the burning piece of
wood above his head till the flame nearly touched his
fingers.

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THE ISABELS 259

"No wind!*' he muttered to himself. "Look here,
seiior— do you know the nature of my undertaking?"

Dr. Monygham nodded sourly.

"It is as if I were taking up a curse upon me, senoi
doctor. A man with a treasure on this coast will have
every knife raised against him in every place upon the
shore. You see that, senor doctor? I shall float
along with a spell upon my life till I meet somewhere the
north-bound steamer of the Company, and then indeed
they will talk about the Capataz of the Sulaco Carga-
dores from one end of America to another.'*

Dr. Monygham laughed his short, throaty laugh.
Nostromo turned round in the doorway.

"But if your worship can find any other man ready
and fit for such business I will stand back. I am not
exactly tired of my life, though I am so poor that I can
carry all I have with myself on my horse's back."

"You gamble too much, and never say 'no' to a pretty
face, Capataz," said Dr. Monygham, with sly sim-
plicity. "That's not the way to make a fortune. But
nobody that I know ever suspected you of being poor.
I hope you have made a good bargain in case you come
back safe from this adventure."

"What bargain would your worship have made?"
asked Nostromo, blowing the smoke out of his lips
through the doorway.

Dr. Monygham listened up the staircase for a mo-
ment before he answered, with another of his short,
abrupt laughs —

"Illustrious Capataz, for taking the curse of death
upon my back, as you call it, nothing else but the whole
treasure would do."

Nostromo vanished out of the doorway with a grunt
of discontent at this jeering answer. Dr. Monygham
heard him gallop away. Nostromo rode furiously in

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260 NOSTROMO

the dark. There were lights in the buildings of the
O.S.N. Company near the wharf, but before he got
there he met the G6uld carriage. The horseman pre-
ceded it with the torch, whose light showed the white
mules trotting, the portly Ignacio driving, and Basilio
with the carbine on the box. From the dark body of
the landau Mrs. Gould's voice cried, "They are waiting
for you, Capataz!" She was returning, chilly and ex-
cited, with Decoud's pocket-book still held in her hand.
He had confided it to her to send to his sister. "Per-
haps my last words to her," he had said, pressing Mrs.
Gould's hand.

The Capataz never checked his speed. At the head
of the wharf vague figures with rifles leapt to the head of
his horse; others closed upon him — cargadores of the
company posted by Captain Mitchell on the watch. At
a word from him they fell back with subservient mur-
murs, recognizing his voice. At the other end of the
jetty, near a cargo crane, in a dark group with glowing
cigars, his name was pronounced in a tone of relief.
Most of the Europeans in Sulaco were there, rallied
roimd Charles Gould, as if the silver of the mine had
been the emblem of a common cause, the symbol of the
I., supreme importance of material interests. They had
J loaded it into the lighter with their own hands. Nos-
tromo recognized Don Carlos Gould, a thin, tall shape,
standing a little apart and silent, to whom another tall
shape, the engineer-in-chief, said aloud, "If it must be
lost, it is a million times better that it should go to the
bottom of the sea."

Martin Decoud called out from the lighter, "Au
revoir, messieurs, till we clasp hands agjain over the
new-bom Occidental Republic." Only a subdued mur-
mur responded to his clear, ringing tones; and then it
seemed to him that the wharf was floating away into the

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THE ISABELS 261

night; but it was Nostromo, who was aheady pushing
against a pile with one of the heavy sweeps. Decoud
did not move; the effect was that of being launched into
space. After a splash or two there was not a sound but
the thud of Nostromo's feet leaping about the boat.
He hoisted the big sail; a breath of wind fanned
Decoud's cheek. Everything had vanished but the Kght
of the lantern Captain Mitchell had hoisted upon the
I>ost at the end of the jetty to guide Nostromo out of
the harbour.

The two men, unable to see each other, kept silent till
the Hghter, slipping before the fitful breeze, passed out
between almost invisible headlands into the still deeper
darkness of the gulf. For a time the lantern on the
jetty shone after them. The wind failed, then fanned
up again, but so faintly that the big, half-decked boat
slipped along with no more noise than if she had been
suspended in the air,

"We are out in the gulf now," said the calm voice of
Nostromo. A moment after he added, " Senor Mitchell
has lowered the light."

"Yes," said Decoud; "nobody can find us now."

A great recrudescence of obscurity embraced the
boat. The sea in the gulf was as black as the clouds
above. Nostromo, after striking a couple of matches
to get a glimpse of the boat-compass he had with
him in the lighter, steered by the feel of the wiud on his
cheek.

It was a new experience for Decoud, this mysterious-
ness of the great waters spread out strangely smooth, as
if their restlessness had been crushed by the weight of
that dense night. The Placido was sleeping profoundly
under its black poncho.

The main thing now for success was to get away from
the coast and gain the middle of the gulf before day

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262 NOSTROMO

broke. The Isabels were somewhere at hand. "On
your left as you look forward, senor," said Nostromo,
suddenly. When his voice ceased, the enormous still-
ness, without light or soimd, seemed to afifect Decoud's
senses like a powerful drug. He didn't even know at
times whether he were asleep or awake. Like a man
lost in slumber, he heard nothing, he saw nothing.
Even his hand held before his face did not exist for his
eyes. The change from the agitation, the passions and
the dangers, from the sights and sounds of the shore,
was so complete that it would have resembled death
had it not been for the survival of his thoughts. In this
foretaste of eternal peace they floated vivid and light,
like unearthly clear dreams of earthly things that may
haunt the souls freed by death from the misty at-
mosphere of regrets and hopes. Decoud shook himself,
shuddered a bit, though the air that drifted past him
was warm. He had the strangest sensation of his soul
having just returned into his body from the circumam-
bient darkness in which land, sea, sky, the mountains,
and the rocks were as if they had not been.

Nostromo's voice was speaking, though he, at the
tiller, was also as if he were not. "Have you been
asleep, Don Martin? Carambal If it were possible I
would think that I, too, have dozed off. I have a
strange notion somehow of having dreamt that there
was a sound of blubbering, a soimd a sorrowing man
could make, somewhere near this boat. Something
between a sigh and a sob."

"Strange!" muttered Decoud, stretched upon the
pile of treasure boxes covered by many tarpaulins.
"Could it be that there is another boat near us in the
gulf? We could not see it, you know."

Nostromo laughed a little at the absurdity of the idea.
They dismissed it from their minds. The solitude

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THE ISABELS 268

could almost be felt. And when the breeze ceased, the
blackness seemed to weigh upon Decoud like a stone.

"This is overpowering," he muttered. "Do we
move at all, Capataz?"

"Not so fast as a crawling beetle tangled in the
grass," answered Nostromo, and his voice seemed
deadened by the thick veil of obscurity that felt
warm and hopeless all about them. There were long
periods when he made no sound, invisible and inaudible
as if he had mysteriously stepped out of the lighter.

In the featureless night Nostromo was not even cer-
tain which way the lighter headed after the wind had
completely died out. He peered for the islands. There
was not a hint of them to be seen, as if they had sunk to
the bottom of the gulf. He threw himself down by the
side of Decoud at last, and whispered into his ear that
if daylight caught them near the Sulaco shore through
want of wind, it would be possible to sweep the lighter
behind the cliflf at the high end of the Great Isabel,
where she would lie concealed. Decoud was surprised
at the grimness of his anxiety. To him the removal
of the treasure was a political move. It was necessary
for several reasons that it should not fall into the hands
of Montero, but here was a man who took another
view of this enterprise. The Caballeros over there did
not seem to have the slightest idea of what they had
given him to do. Nostromo, as if aflFected by the gloom
around, seemed nervously resentful. Decoud was
surprised. The Capataz, indifferent to those dangers
that seemed obvious to his companion, allowed himself
to become scornfully exasperated by the deadly nature
of the trust put, as a matter of course, into his hands.
It was more dangerous, Nostromo said, with a laugh
and a curse, than sending a man to get the treasure
that people said was guarded by devils and ghosts in the

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264 NOSTROMO

deep ravines of Azuera. "Sefior," he said, "we must
catch the steamer at sea. We must keep out in the
open looking for her till we have eaten and drimk all
that has been put on board here. And if we miss her by
some mischance, we must keep away from the land till
we grow weak, and perhaps mad, and die, and drift
dead, until one or another of the steamers of the
Compania comes upon the boat with the two dead men
who have saved the treasure. That, senor, is the only
way to save it; for, don't you see? for us to come to the
land anywhere in a himdred miles along this coast with
this silver in our possession is to run the naked breast
against the point of a knife. This thing has been given
to me like a deadly disease. If men discover it I am
dead, and you, too, sefior, since you would come with
me. There is enough silver to make a whole province
rich, let alone a seaboard pueblo inhabited by thieves
and vagabonds. Senor, they would think that heaven
itself sent these riches into their hands, and would cut
our throats without hesitation. I would trust no fair
words from the best man aroimd the shores of this wild
gulf. Reflect that, even by giving up the treasure at
the first demand, we would not be able to save our lives.
Do you understand this, or must I explain?"

"No, you needn't explain," said Decoud, a little
listlessly. "I can see it well enough myself, that the
possession of this treasure is very much like a deadly
disease for men situated as we are. But it had to be re-
moved from Sulaco, and you were the man for the task."

"I was; but I cannot believe," said Nostromo, "that
its loss would have impoverished Don Carlos Gould
very much. There is more wealth in the moimtain. I
have heard it rolling down the shoots on quiet night«*
when I used to ride to Rincon to see a certain girl,
after my work at the harbour was done. For yearj^

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THE ISABELS 265

the rich rocks have been pouring down with a noise like
thunder, and the miners say that there is enough at the
heart of the mountain to thimder on for years and years
to come. And yet, the day before yesterday, we have
been fighting to save it from the mob, and to-night I
am sent out with it into this darkness, where there is
no wind to get away with; as if it were the last lot of
silver on earth to get bread for the hungry with. Ha!
ha! Well, I am going to make it the most famous and
desperate affair of my life — wind or no wind. It shall
be talked about when the little children are grown up
and the grown men are old. Aha! the Monterists must
not get hold of it, I am told, whatever happens to Nos-
tromo the Capataz; and they shall not have it, I tell
you, since it has been tied for safety round Nostromo's
neck."

"I see it," murmured Decoud. He saw, indeed, that
his companion had his own peculiar view of this enter-
prise.

Nostromo interrupted his reflections upon the way
men's qualities are made use of, without any fun-
damental knowledge of their nature, by the proposal
they should slip the long oars out and sweep the
lighter in the direction of the Isabels. It wouldn't
do for daylight to reveal the treasure floating within a
mile or so of the harbour entrance. The denser the
darkness generally, the smarter were the puffs of wind
on which he had reckoned to make his way; but to-
night the gulf, under its poncho of clouds, remained
breathless, as if dead rather than asleep.

Don Martin's soft hands suffered cruelly, tugging
at the thick handle of the enormous oar. He stuck
to it manfully, setting his teeth. He, too, was in the
toils of an imaginative existence, and that strange work
of pulling a lighter seemed to belong naturally to the

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«66 NOSTROMO

inception of h new state, acquired an ideal meaning
from his love for Antonia. For all their eflforts, the
heavily laden hghter hardly moved. Nostromo could
be heard swearing to himself between the regular
splashes of the sweeps. "We are making a crooked
path," he muttered to himself. "I wish I could see the
islands."

In his unskilfulness Don Martin over-exerted himself.
Now and then a sort of muscular f aintness would run
from the tips of his aching fingers through every fibre
of his body, and pass ofif in a flush of heat. He had
fought, talked, suffered mentally and physically,
exerting his mind and body for the last forty-eight hours
without intermission. He had had no rest, very Httle
food, no pause in the stress of his thoughts and his
feelings. Even his love for Antonia, whence he drew
his strength and his inspiration, had reached the point
of tragic tension during their hurried interview ^y Don
Jose's bedside. And now, suddenly, he was thrown
out of all this into' a dark gulf, whose very gloom, si-
lence, and breathless peace added a torment to the
necessity for physical exertion. He imagined the
lighter sinking to the bottom with an extraordinary
shudder of dehght. "I am on the verge of delirium,"
he thought. He mastered the trembling of all his
limbs, of his breast, the inward trembling of all his
body exhausted of its nervous force.

"Shall we rest, Capataz?" he proposed in a careless
tone. "There are many hours of night yet before us."

" True. It is but a mile or so, I suppose. Rest your
arms, senor, if that is what you mean. You will find
no other sort of rest, I can promise you, since you let
yourself be bound to this treasure whose loss would
make no poor man poorer. No, senor; there is no rest
till we find a north-bound steamer, or else some ship

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THE ISABELS 267

finds us drifting about stretched out dead upon the
Englishman's silver. Or rather — no; por DiosI I shall y
cut down the gunwale with the axe right to the water's /
edge before thirst and hunger rob me of my strength.
By all the saints and devils I shall let the sea have the
treasure rather than give it up to any stranger. Since
it was the good pleasure of the Caballeros to send me ofif
on such an errand, they shall learn I am just the man
they take me for."

Decoud lay on the silver boxes panting. All his
active sensations and feelings from as far back as he
could remember seemed to him the maddest of dreams.
Even his passionate devotion to Antonia into which he
had worked himself up out of the depths of his scepti-
cism had lost all appearance of reality. For a moment
he was the prey of an extremely languid but not im-
pleasant indifference.

"I am sure they didn't mean you to take such a
desperate view of this affair," he said.

" What was it, then? A joke? " snarled the man, who
on the pay-sheets of the O.S.N. Company's estab-
lishment in Sulaco was described as "Foreman of the
wharf" against the figiure of his wages. "Was it for a
joke they woke me up from my sleep after two days of
street fighting to make me stake my life upon a bad
card? Everybody knows, too, that I am not a lucky
gambler."

"Yes, everybody knows of your good luck with
women, Capataz," Decoud propitiated his companion
in a weary drawl.

"Look here, senor," Nostromo went on. "I never
even remonstrated about this affair. Directly I heard
what was wanted I saw what a desperate affair it must
be, and I made up my mind to see it out. Every
minute was of importance. I had to wait for you first.

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268 NOSTROMO

Then, when we arrived at the Italia Una, old Giorgio
shouted to me to go for the English doctor. Later on,
that poor dying woman wanted to see me, as you know.
Senor, I was reluctant to go. I felt already this cursed
silver growing heavy upon my back, and I was afraid
that, knowing herself to be dying, she would ask me to
ride ofif again for a priest. Father Corbelan, who is
fearless, would have come at a word; but Father Cor-
belan is far a\yay, safe with the band of Her-
nandez, and the populace, that would have liked to
tear him to pieces, are much incensed against the
priests. Not a single fat padre would have consented
to put his head out of his hiding-place to-night to save a
Christian soul, except, perhaps, under my protection.
That was in her mind. I pretended I did not believe
she was going to die. Senor, I refused to fetch a priest
for a dying woman . . /'

Decoud was heard to stir.

"You did, Capataz!" he exclaimed. His tone
changed. "Well, you know — it was rather fine."

" You do not believe in priests, Don Martin? Neither
do I. What was the use of wasting time? But she-
she believes in them. The thing sticks in my throat.
She may be dead already, and here we are floating help-
less with no wind at all. Curse on all superstition.
She died thinking I deprived her of Paradise, I suppose.
It shall be the most desperate affair of my life."

Decoud remained lost in reflection. He tried to
analyze the sensations awaked by what he had been
told. The voice of the Capataz was heard again:

"Now, Don Martin, let us take up the sweeps and try
to find the Isabels. It is either that or sinking the
lighter if the day overtakes us. We must not forget
that the steamer from Esmeralda with the soldiers may
be coming along. We will pull straight on now. I have

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THE ISABELS «69

discovered a bit of a candle here, and we must take the
risk of a small light to make a course by the boat com-
pass. There is not enough wind to blow it out — ^may
the curse of Heaven fall upon this blind gulf!"

A small flame appeared biu-ning quite straight. It
showed fragmentarily the stout ribs and planking in the
hoUow, empty part of the lighter. Decoud could see
Nostromo standing up to pull. He saw him as high as
the red sash on his waist, with a gleam of a white-
handled revolver and the wooden haft of a long knife
protruding on his left side. Decoud nerved himself for
the effort of rowing. Certainly there was not enough
wind to blow the candle out, but its flame swayed a
little to the slow movement of the heavy boat. It was
so big that with their utmost efforts they could not
move it quicker than about a mile an hour. This was
suflScient, however, to sweep them amongst the Isabels
long before daylight came. There was a good six hours
of darkness before them, and the distance from the
harboiu' to the Great Isabel did not exceed two miles.
Decoud put this heavy toil to the account of the
Capataz's impatience. Sometimes they paused, and
then strained their ears to hear the boat from Es-
meralda. In this perfect quietness a steamer moving
would have been heard from far off. As to seeing any-
thing it was out of the question. They could not see
each other. Even the lighter's sail, which remained
set, was invisible. Very often they rested.

"Caramba!" said Nostromo, suddenly, during one of
those intervals when they lolled idly against the heavy
handles' of the sweeps. "What is it? Are you dis-
tressed, Don Martin?"

Decoud assured him that he was not distressed in the
least. Nostromo for a time kept perfectly still, and
then in a whisper invited Martin to come aft.

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270 NOSTROMO

With his lips touching Decoud's ear he declared his
belief that there was somebody else besides themselves
upon the lighter. Twice now he had heard the sound of
stifled sobbing.

"Seftor," he whispered with awed wonder, "I am
certain that there is somebody weeping in this lighter."

Decoud had heard nothing. He expressed his in-
credulity. However, it was easy to ascertain the truth
of the matter.

"It is most amazing," muttered Nostromo. "Could
anybody have concealed himself on board while the
lighter was lying alongside the wharf?"

"And you say it was like sobbing?" asked Decoud,
lowering his voice, too. "If he is weeping, whoever he
is he cannot be very dangerous."

Clambering over the precious pile in the middle, they
crouched Idw on the foreside of the mast and groped
under the half-deck. Right forward, in the narrowest
part, their hands came upon the limbs of a man, who
remained as silent as death. Too startled themselves
to make a sound, they dragged him aft by one arm and
the collar of his coat. He was limp — ^lifeless.

The light of the bit of candle fell upon a roimd,
hook-nosed face with black moustaches and little side-
whiskers. He was extremely dirty. A greasy growth of
beard was sprouting on the shaven parts of the cheeks.
The thick lips were slightly parted, but the eyes re-
mained closed. Decoud, to his immense astonishment,
recognized Seiior Hirsch, the hide merchant from
Esmeralda. Nostromo, too, had recognized him. And
they gazed at each other across the body, lying with its
naked feet higher than its head, in an absurd pretence of
sleep, faintness, or death.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Fob a moment, before this extraordinary find, they
forgot their own concerns and sensations. Sefior
Hirsch's sensations as he lay there must have been those
of eictreme terror. For a long time he refused to give a
sign of life, till at last Decoud's objurgations, and, per-
haps more, Nostromo's impatient suggestion that he
should be thrown overboard, as he seemed to be dead,
induced him to raise one eyelid first, and then the other.

It appeared that he had never found a safe oppor-
tunity to leave Sulaco. He lodged with Anzani, the
universal storekeeper, on the Plaza Mayor. But when
the riot broke out he had made his escape from his
host's house before daylight, and in such a hurry that
he had forgotten to put on his shoes. He had run out
impulsively in his socks, and with his hat in his hand,
into the garden of Anzani's house. Fear gave him the
necessary agility to climb over several low walls, and
afterwards he blimdered into the overgrown cloisters of
the ruined Franciscan convent in one of the by-streets.
He forced himself into the midst of matted bushes with
the recklessness of desperation, and this accounted for
his scratched body and his torn clothing. He lay hid-
den there all day, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his
mouth with all the intensity of thirst engendered by
heat and fear. Three times diflFerent bands of men in-
vaded the place with shouts and imprecations, looking
for Father Corbelan; but towards the evening, still lying
on his face in the bushes, he thought he would die from
the fear of silence. He was not very dear as to what

271

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272 NOSTROMO

had induced him to leave the place, but evidently he had
got out and slunk successfully out of town along the
deserted back lanes. He wandered in the darkness near
the railway, so maddened by apprehension that he dared
not even approach the fires of the pickets of Italian
workmen guarding the line. He had a vague idea
evidently of finding refuge in the railway yards, but the
dogs rushed upon him, barking; men began to shout;
a shot was fired at random. He fled away from the
gates. By the merest accident, as it happened, he
took the direction of the O.S.N. Company's oflSces.
Twice he stumbled upon the bodies of men killed during
the day. But everything living frightened him much
more. He crouched, crept, crawled, made dashes,
guided by a sort of animal instinct, keeping away from
every light and from every sound of voices. His idea
was to throw himself at the feet of Captain Mitchell
and beg for shelter in the Company's oflSces. It was
all dark there as he approached on his hands and knees,
but suddenly someone on guard challenged loudly,
** Quien vive? " There were more dead men lying about,
and he flattened himself down at once by the side of a
cold corpse. He heard a voice saying, "Here is one of
those wounded rascals crawling about. Shall I go and
finish him?'^ And another voice objected that it was
not safe to go out without a lantern upon such an er-
rand; perhaps it was only some negro Liberal looking
for a chance to stick a knife into the stomach of an
honest man. Hirsch didn't stay to hear any more, but
crawling away to the end of the wharf, hid himself
amongst a lot of empty casks. After a while some
people came along, talking, and with glowing cigarettes.
He did not stop to ask himself whether they would
be likely to do him any harm, but bolted incontinently
along the jetty, saw a lighter lying moored at the end.

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THE ISABELS 273

and threw himself into it. In his desire to find cover
he crept right forward under the half -deck, and he had
remained there more dead than alive, suflFering agonies
of hunger and thirst, and almost fainting with terror,
when he heard numerous footsteps and the voices of
the Europeans who came in a body escorting the wagon-
load of treasure, pushed along the rails by a squad of
Cargadores. He understood perfectly what was being
done from the talk, but did not disclose his presence
from the fear that he would not be allowed to remain.
His only idea at the time, overpowering and masterful,
was to get away from this terrible Sulaco. And now
he regretted it very much. He had heard Nostromo
talk to Decoud, and wished himself back on shore.
He did not desire to be involved in any desperate affair
— in a situation where one could not run away. The
involuntary groans of his anguished spirit had betrayed
him to the sharp ears of the Capataz.

They had propped him up in a sitting posture against
the side of the lighter, and he went on with the moaning
account of his adventures till his voice broke, his head
fell forward. "Water," he whispered, with diflSculty.
Decoud held one of the cans to his lips. He revived
after an extraordinarily short time, and scrambled up to
his feet wildly. Nostromo, in an angry and threatening
voice, ordered him forward. Hirsch was one of those
men whom fear lashes like a whip, and he must have had
an appalling idea of the Capataz's ferocity. He dis-
played an extraordinary agility in disappearing forward
into the darkness. They heard him getting over the
tarpaulin; then there was the sound of a heavy fall,
followed by a weary sigh. Afterwards all was still in
the fore-part of the lighter, as though he had killed him-
self in his headlong tumble. Nostromo shouted in a
menacing voice —

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274 NOSTROMO

"Lie still there! Do not move a limb. If I hear
as much as a loud breath from you I shall come over
there and put a bullet through your head."

The mere presence of a coward, however passive,
brings an element of treachery into a dangerous situa-
tion. Nostromo's nervous impatience passed into
gloomy thoughtfulness. Decoud, in an undertone, as
if speaking to himself, remarked that, after all, this
bizarre event made no great difference. He could
not conceive what harm the man could do. At most
he would be in the way, like an inanimate and useless
object — ^like a block of wood, for instance.

"I would think twice before getting rid of a piece of
wood," said Nostromo, calmly. "Something may
happen unexpectedly where you could make use of it.
But in an affair like ours a man like this ought to be
thrown overboard. Even if he were as brave as a lion
we would not want him here. We are not rimning
away for our lives. Senor, there is no harm in a brave
man trying to save himself with ingenuity and courage;
but you have heard his tale, Don Martin. His being

here is a miracle of fear " Nostromo paused.

"There is no room for fear in this lighter," he added
through his teeth.

Decoud had no answer to make. It was not a posi-
tion for argument, for a display of scruples or feelings.
There were a thousand ways in which a panic-stricken
man could make himself dangerous. It was evident
that Hirsch could not be spoken to, reasoned with, or
persuaded into a rational line of conduct. The story
of his own escape demonstrated that clearly enough.
Decoud thought that it was a thousand pities the
wretch had not died of fright. Nature, who had made
him what he was, seemed to have calculated cruelly
bow much he could bear in the way of atrocious anguish

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THE ISABELS 276

without actually expiring. Some compassion was due
to so much terror. Decoud, though imaginative enough
for sympathy, resolved not to interfere with any action
that Nostromo would take. But Nostromo did noth-
ing. And the fate of Senor Hirsch remained sus-
pended in the darkness of the gulf at the mercy of
events which could not be foreseen.

The Capataz, extending his hand, put out the candle
suddenly. It was to Decoud as if his companion had
destroyed, by a single touch, the world of affairs, of
loves, of revolution, where his complacent superiority
analyzed fearlessly all motives and all passions, in-
cluding his own.

He gasped a little. Decoud was affected by the
novelty of his position. Intellectually self-confident,
he suffered from being deprived of the only weapon he
could use with effect. No intelligence could penetrate^
the darkness of the Placid Gulf. There remained only
one thing he was certain of, and that was the over-
weening vanity of his companion. It was direct, un-
complicated, naive, and effectual. Decoud, who had
been making use of him, had tried to understand his
man thoroughly. He had discovered a complete
singleness of motive behind the varied manifestations
of a consistent character. This was why the man re-
mained so astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness
of his conceit. And now there was a complication. It
was evident that he resented having been given a task
in which there were so many chances of failure. "I
wonder," thought Decoud, "how he would behave if I
were not here."

He heard Nostromo mutter again, "No! there is no
room for fear on this lighter. Courage itself does not
seem good enough. I have a good eye and a steady
hand; no man can say he ever saw me tired or uncer-

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276 NOSTROMO

tain what to do; but por Dios, Don Martin, I have been
sent out into this black calm on a business where neither
a good eye, nor a steady hand, nor judgment are any
use. . . ." He swore a string of oaths in Spanish
and ItaUan under his breath. "Nothing but sheer
desperation will do for this affair."
. These words were in strange contrast to the pre-
^ vailing peace — ^to this almost solid stillness of the gulf.
A shower fell with an abrupt whispering sound all
round the boat, and Decoud took off his hat, and, letting
his head get wet, felt greatly refreshed. Presently a
steady httle draught of air caressed his cheek. The
lighter began to move, but the shower distanced it. The
drops ceased to fall upon his head and hands, the whis-
pering died out in the distance. Nostromo emitted a
grunt of satisfaction, and grasping the tiller, chirruped
softly, as sailors do, to encourage the wind. Never foj
the last three days had Decoud felt less the need for
what the Capataz would call desperation.

**I fancy I hear another shower on the water," he ob-
served in a tone of quiet content. " I hope it will catch
us up."

Nostromo ceased chirruping at once. "You hear
another shower?" he said, doubtfully. A sort of thin-
ning of the darkness seemed to have taken place, and
Decoud could see now the outline of his companion's
figure, and even the sail came out of the night like a
square block of dense snow.

The sound which Decoud had detected came along
the water harshly. Nostromo recognized that noise
partaking of a hiss and a rustle which spreads out on all
sides of a steamer making her way through a smooth
water on a quiet night. It could be nothing else but
the captured transport with troops from Esmeralda.
She carried no lights. The noise of her steaming, grow-

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THE ISABELS 277

ing louder every minute, would stop at times altogether,
and then begin again abruptly, and sound startlingly
nearer, as if that invisible vessel, whose position could
not be precisely guessed, were making straight for the
lighter. Meantime, that last kept on sailing slowly and
noiselessly before a breeze so faint that it was only by
leaning over the side and feeling the water slip through
his fingers that Decoud convinced himself they were
moving at all. His drowsy feeling had departed. He
was glad to know that the lighter was moving. After
so much stillness the noise of the steamer seemed up-
roarious and distracting. There was a weirdness in not
being able to see her. Suddenly all was still. She had
stopped, but so close to them that the steam, blowing off,
sent its rumbling vibration right over their heads,

"They are trying to make out where they are," said
Decoud in a whisper. Again he leaned over and put his
fingers into the water. " We are moving quite smartly,"
he informed Nostromo.

"We seem to be crossing her bows," said the Capataz
in a cautious tone. "But this is a blind game with
death. Moving on is of no use. We mustn't be seen
or heard."

His whisper was hoarse with excitement. Of all his
face there was nothing visible but a gleam of white eye-
balls. His fingers gripped Decoud's shoulder. "That
is the only way to save this treasure from this steamer
full of soldiers. Any other would have carried lights.
But you observe there is not a gleam to show us where
she is."

Decoud stood as if paralyzed; only his thoughts were
wildly active. In the space of a second he remembered
the desolate glance of Antonia as he left her at the bedside
of her father in the gloomy house of Avellanos, with
shuttered windows, but all the doors standing open, and

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278 NOSTROMO

deserted by all the servants except an old negro at the
gate. He remembered the Casa Goidd on his last visit,
the arguments, the tones of his voice, the impenetrable
attitude of Charles, Mrs. Goidd's face so blanched with
anxiety and fatigue that her eyes seemed to have
changed colour, appearing nearly black by contrast.
Even whole sentences of the proclamation which he
meant to make Barrios issue from his headquarters at
Cayta as soon as he got there passed through his mind;
the very germ of the new State, the Separationist procla-
mation which he had tried before he left to read hur-
riedly to Don Jose, stretched out on his bed under the
fixed gaze of his daughter. God knows whether the old
statesman had understood it; he was unable to speak,
hut he had certainly lifted his arm off the coverlet; his
hand had moved as if to make the sign of the cross in the
air, a gesture of blessing, of consent. Decoud had that
very draft in his pocket, written in pencil on several
loose sheets of paper, with the heavily-printed heading,
" Administration of the San Tome Silver Mine. Sidaco.
Republic of Costaguana." He had written it furiously,
snatching page after page on Charles Goidd's table.
Mrs. Gould had looked several times over his shoulder
as he wrote; but the Senor Administrador, standing
straddle-legged, would not even glance at it when it was
finished. He had waved it away firmly. It must have
been scorn, and not caution, since he never made a
remark about the use of the Administration's paper
for such a compromising document. And that showed
his disdain, the true English disdain of common pru-
dence, as if everything outside the range of their own
thoughts and feelings were unworthy of serious recog-
nition. Decoud had the time in a second or two to be-
come furiously angry with Charles Goidd, and even re-
sentful against Mrs. Gould, in whose care, tacitly it

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THE ISABELS 279

is true, he had left the safety of Antonia. Better
perish a thousand times than owe yoiu* preservation to
such people, he exclaimed mentally. The grip of
Nostromo's fingers never removed from his shoulder,
tightening fiercely, recalled him to himself.

"The darkness is oiu* friend," the Capataz murmured
into his ear. "I am going to lower the sail, and trust
our escape to this black gulf. No eyes coidd make us
out lying silent with a naked mast. I will do it now, be-
fore this steamer closes still more upon us. The faint
creak of a block would betray us and the San Tome
treasure into the hands of those thieves."

He moved about as warily as a cat. Decoud heard
no sound; and it was only by the disappearance of the
square blotch of darkness that he knew the yard had
come down, lowered as carefully as if it had been made
of glass. Next moment he heard Nostromo's quiet
breathing by his side.

"You had better not move at all from where you are,
Don Martin," advised the Capataz, earnestly. "You
might stumble or displace something which would make
a noise. The sweeps and the punting poles are lying
about. Move not for yoiu* life. Par Dios^ Don Martin,"
he went on in a keen but friendly whisper, "I am so
desperate that if I didn't know your worship to be a
man of courage, capable of standing stock still whatever
happens, I would drive my knife into your heart."

A deathlike stillness surrounded the lighter. It was
diflBcult to believe that there was near a steamer full of
men with many pairs of eyes peering from her bridge for
some hint of land in the night. Her steam had ceased
blowing off, and she remained stopped too far off ap-
parently for any other sound to reach the lighter.

"Perhaps you would, Capataz," Decoud began in a
whisper. "However, you need not trouble. There

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280 NOSTROMO

are other things than the fear of your knife to keep my
heart steady. It shall not betray you. Only, have you
forgotten '*

"I spoke to you openly as to a man as desperate as
myself," explained the Capataz. "The silver must be
saved from the Monterists. I told Captain Mitchell
three times that I preferred to go alone. I told Don
Carlos Goidd, too. It was in the Casa Gould. They
had sent for me. The ladies were there; and when I
tried to explain why I did not wish to have you with me,
they promised me, both of them, great rewards for your
safety. A strange way to talk to a man you are sending
out to an almost certain death. Those gentlefolk do not
seem to have sense enough to imderstand what they
are giving one to do. I told them I could do nothing
for you. You woidd have been safer with the bandit
Hernandez. It would have been possible to ride out of
the town with no greater risk than a chance shot sent
after you in the dark. But it was as if they had been
deaf. I had to promise I would wait for you under the
harbour gate. I did wait. And now because you are a
brave man you are as safe as the silver. Neither more
nor less."

At that moment, as if by way of comment upon Nos-
tromo's words, the invisible steamer went ahead at half
speed only, as could be judged by the leisurely beat of
her propeller. The sound shifted its place markedly,
but without coming nearer. It even grew a little more
distant right abeam of the lighter, and then ceased
again.

"They are trying for a sight of the Isabels," muttered
Nostromo, "in order to make for the harbour in a
straight line and seize the Custom House with the
treasure in it. Have you ever seen the Commandant of
Esmeralda, Sotillo? A handsome fellow, with a soft

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THE ISABELS 281

voice. When I first came here I used to see him in the
Calle talking to the sefioritas at the windows of the
houses, and showing his white teeth all the time. But
one of my Cargadores, who had been a soldier, told me
that he had once ordered a man to be flayed aUve in the
remote Campo, where he was sent recruiting amongst
the people of the Estancias. It has never entered his
head that the Compania had a man capable of baffling
his game."

The murmuring loquacity of the Capataz disturbed
Decoud like a hint of weakness. And yet, talkative
resolution may be as genuine as grim silence.

"Sotillo is not baffled so far," he said. "Have you
forgotten that crazy man forward?"

Nostromo had not forgotten Sefior Hirsch. He re-
proached himself bitterly for not having visited the
lighter carefully before leaving the wharf. He re-
proached himself for not having stabbed and flung
Hirsch overboard at the very moment of discovery with-
out even looking at his face. That would have been
consistent with the desperate character of the affair.
Whatever happened, Sotillo was already baffled. Even
if that wretch, now as silent as death, did anything to
betray the nearness of the lighter, Sotillo — ^if Sotillo
it was in command of the troops on board — would be
still baffled of his plunder.

*'I have an axe in my hand," Nostromo whispered,
wrathfidly, "that in three strokes would cut through
the side down to the water's edge. Moreover, each
lighter has a plug in the stem, and I know exactly where
it is. I feel it under the sole of my foot."

Decoud recognized the ring of genuine determination
in the nervous murmurs, the vindictive excitement of
the famous Capataz. Before the steamer, guided by a
shriek or two (for there could be no more than that.

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282 NOSTROMO

Nostromo said, gnashing his teeth audibly), could find
the lighter there would be plenty of time to sink this
treasure tied up round his neck.

The last words he hissed into Decoud's ear. Decoud
said nothing. He was perfectly convinced. The
usual characteristic quietness of the man was gonie.
It was not equal to the situation as he conceived it.
Something deeper, something unsuspected by everyone,
had come to the siuiace. Decoud, with careful move-
ments, slipped off his overcoat and divested himself of
his boots; he did not consider himself boimd in honour
to sink with the treasure. His object was to get down
to Barrios, in Cayta, as the Capataz knew very well; and
he, too, meant, in his own way, to put into that attempt
all the desperation of which he was capable. Nostromo
muttered, "True, true! You are a politician, sefior.
Rejoin the army, and start another revolution." He
pointed out, however, that there was a little boat be-
longing to every lighter fit to carry two men, if not more.
Theirs was towing behind.

Of that Decoud had not been aware. Of course, it
was too dark to see, and it was only when Nostromo
put his hand upon its painter fastened to a cleat in the
stern that he experienced a fidl measure of relief. The
prospect of finding himself in the water and swimming,
overwhelmed by ignorance and darkness, probably in a
circle, till he sank from exhaustion, was revolting. The
barren and cruel futility of such an end intimidated his
affectation of careless pessimism. In comparison to it,
the chance of being left floating in a boat, exposed
to thirst, hunger, discovery, imprisonment, execution,
presented itself with an aspect of amenity worth secur-
ing even at the cost of some self -contempt. He did not
accept Nostromo's proposal that he should get into the
boat at once. "Something sudden may overwhelpj. jjta^

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THE ISABELS 283

sefior/' the Capataz remarked promising faithfully, at
the same time, to let go the painter at the moment
when the necessity became manifest.

But Decoud assured him lightly that he did not mean
to take to the boat till the very last moment, and that
then he meant the Capataz to come along, too* The .
darkness of the gulf was no longer for him the end of all/
things. It was part of a living world since, pervading^
it, failure and death could be felt at your elbow. And
at the same time it was a shelter. He exulted in its
impenetrable obscurity. "Like a wall, like a wall," he
muttered to himself.

The only thing which checked his confidence was the
thought of Seftor Hirsch. Not to have bound and
gagged him seemed to Decoud now the height of im-
provident folly. As long as the miserable creature had
the power to raise a yell he was a constant danger. His
abject terror was mute now, but there was no saying
from what cause it might suddenly find vent in shrieks.

This very madness of fear which both Decoud and
Nostromo had seen in the wild and irrational glances,
and in the continuous twitchings of his mouth, protected
Sefior Hirsch from the cruel necessities of this desperate
aflfair. The moment of silencing him for ever had
passed. As Nostromo remarked, in answer to Decoud's
regrets, it was too late! It could not be done without
noise, especially in the ignorance of the man's exact
position. Wherever he had elected to crouch and
tremble, it was too hazardous to go near him. He
would begin probably to yell for mercy. It was much
better to leave him quite alone since he was keeping so
still. But to trust to his silence became every moment
a greater strain upon Decoud's composure.

" I wish, Capataz, you had not let the right moment
pass," he murmured.

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284 NOSTROMO

" What ! To silence him for ever? I thought it good
to hear first how he came to be here. It was too
strange. Who could imagine that it was all an accident?
Afterwards, seftor, when I saw you giving him water to
drink, I could not do it. Not after I had seen you
holding up the can to his lips as though he were yoiu*
brother. Senor, that sort of necessity must not be
thought of too long. And yet it would have been no
cruelty to take away from him his wretched life. It is
nothing but fear. Your compassion saved him then,
Don Martin, and now it is too late. It couldn^t be
done without noise.'*

In the steamer they were keeping a perfect silence,
and the stillness was so profound that Decoud felt as if
the slightest sound conceivable must travel imchecked
and audible to the end of the world. What if Hirsch

1 coughed or sneezed? To feel himself at the mercy of
such an idiotic contingency was too exasperating to be
looked upon with irony. Nostromo, too, seemed to be
getting restless. Was it possible, he asked himself, that
the steamer, finding the night too dark altogether, in-
tended to remain stopped where she was till daylight?
He began to think that this, after all, was the real dan-
ger. He was afraid that the darkness, which was bis
protection, would, in the end, cause his undoing.
y Sotillo, as Nostromo had surmised, was in conunand
on board the transport. The events of the last forty-
^>^. eight horn's in Sulaco were not known to him; neither
^'^^ was he aware that the telegraphist in Esmeralda had
managed to warn his colleague in Sulaco. Like a good
many oflScers of the troops garrisoning the province,
Sotillo had been influenced in his adoption of the Ri-
bierist cause by the belief that it had the enormous
wealth of the Gould Concession on its side. He had
been one of the frequenters of the Casa Gould, where he

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A-

THE ISABELS 285

had aired his Blanco convictions and his ardour for re-
form before Don Jose Avellanos, casting frank, honest
glances towards Mrs. Goidd and Antonia the while. He
was known to belong to a good family persecuted and
impoverished during the tyranny of Guzman Bento.
The opinions he expressed appeared eminently natural
and proper in a man of his parentage and antecedents.
And he was not a deceiver; it was perfectly natural for
him to express elevated sentiments while his whole
facidties were taken up with what seemed then a solid
and practical notion — ^the notion that the husband of
Antonia Avellanos woidd be, naturally, the intimate
friend of the Gould Concession. He even pointed this
out to Anzani once, when negotiating the sixth or
seventh small loan in the gloomy, damp apartment
with enormous iron bars, behind the principal shop in
the whole row imder the Arcades. He hinted to the
imiversal shopkeeper at the excellent terms he was on
with the emancipated senorita, who was like a sister
to the Englishwoman. He would advance one leg and
put his arms akimbo, posing for Anzani's inspection, and
fixing him with a haughty stare.

"Look, miserable shopkeeper! How can a man like
me fail with any woman, let alone an emancipated girl
living in scandalous freedom?" he seemed to say.

His manner in the Casa Gould was, of course, very
different — devoid of all trucidence, and even slightly
mournful. Like most of his countrymen, he was carried
away by the soimd of fine words, especially if uttered
by himself. He had no convictions of any sort upon
anything except as to the irresistible power of his
personal advantages. But that was so firm that even
Decoud's appearance in Sulaco, and his intimacy with
the Goidds and the Avellanos, did not disquiet him.
On the contrary, he tried to make friends with -that

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286 NOSTROMO

rich Costaguanero from Europe in the hope of borrow-
ing a large sum by-and-by. The only guiding motive
of his life was to get money for the satisfaction of his
expensive tastes, which he indulged recklessly, having
no self-control. He imagined himself a master of
. intrigue, but his corruption was as simple as an animal
instinct. At times, in solitude, he had his moments of
ferocity, and also on such occasions as, for instance,
when alone in a room with Anzani trying to get a loan.

He had talked himself into the command of the
Esmeralda garrison. That small seaport had its impor-
tance as the station of the main submarine cable con-
necting the Occidental Provinces with the outer world,
and the junction with it of the Sulaco branch. Don
Jose Avellanos proposed him, and Barrios, with a rude
and jeering guffaw, had said, "Oh, let Sotillo go. He is
a very good man to keep guard over the cable, and the
ladies of Esmeralda ought to have their turn." Barrios,
an indubitably brave man, had no great opinion of So-
tillo.

It was through the Esmeralda cable alone that the
San Tome mine could be kept in constant touch with
the great financier, whose tacit approval made the
strength of the Ribierist movement. This movement
had its adversaries even there. Sotillo governed
Esmeralda with repressive severity till the adverse
course of events upon the distant theatre of civil war
forced upon him the reflection that, after all, the greai="
silver mine was fated to become the spoil of the victors.
But caution was necessary. He began by assuming
a dark and mysterious attitude towards the faithful
Ribierist municipality of Esmeralda. Later on, the
information that the commandant was holding as-
semblies of oflScers in the dead of night (which had
leaked out somehow) caused those gentlemen to neglect

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THE ISABELS 287

their civil duties altogether, and remain shut up in their
houses. Suddenly one day all the letters from Sidaco
by the overland courier were carried off by a file of
soldiers from the post oflSce to the Commandancia,
without disguise, concealment, or apology, Sotillo had
heard through Cayta of the final defeat of Ribiera.

This was the first open sign of the change in his con-
victions. Presently notorious democrats, who had been
living till then in constant fear of arrest, leg irons, and
even floggings, could be observed going in and out at
the great door of the Commandancia, where the horses
of the orderlies doze under their heavy saddles, while
the men, in ragged uniforms and pointed straw hats,
lounge on a bench, with their naked feet stuck out
beyond the strip of shade; and a sentry, in a red baize
coat with holes at the elbows, stands at the top of the
steps glaring haughtily at the common people, who un-
cover their heads to him as they pass.

Sotillo's ideas did not soar above the care for his
personal safety and the chance of plundering the town
in his charge, but he feared that such a late adhesion
would earn but scant gratitude from the victors. He
had believed just a little too long in the power of the
San Tome mine. The seized correspondence had con-
firmed his previous information of a large amount of
silver ingots lying in the Sulaco Custom House. To
gain possession of it would be a clear Monterist move; a
sort of service that would have to be rewarded. With
the silver in his hands he could make terms for himself
and his soldiers. He was aware neither of the riots, nor
of the President's escape to Sulaco and the close pursuit
led by Montero's brother, the guerrillero. The game
seemed in his own hands. The initial moves were the
seizure of the cable telegraph office and the securing
of the Government steamer lying in th^ aarrow creek

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288 NOSTROMO

which is the harbour of Esmeralda. The last was ef-
fected without diflSculty by a company of soldiers
swarming with a rush over the gangways as she lay
alongside the quay; but the lieutenant charged with the
duty of arresting the telegraphist halted on the way be-
fore the only cafe in Esmeralda, where he distributed
some brandy to his men, and refreshed himself at the
expense of the owner, a known Ribierist. The whole
party became intoxicated, and proceeded on their
mission up the street yelling and firing random shots at
the windows. This little festivity, which might have
turned out dangerous to the telegraphist's life, enabled
him in the end to send his warning to Sulaco. The
lieutenant, staggering upstairs with a drawn sabre, was
before long kissing him on both cheeks in one of those
swift changes of mood peculiar to a state of drunken-
ness. He clasped the telegraphist close roimd the neck,
assuring him that all the oflScers of the Esmeralda
garrison were going to be made colonels, while tears of
happiness streamed down his sodden face. Thus it
came about that the town major, coming along later,
foimd the whole party sleeping on the stairs and in
passages, and the telegraphist (who scorned this chance
of escape) very busy clicking the key of the transmitter.
The major led him away bareheaded, with his hands tied
behind his back, but concealed the truth from Sotillo,
who remained in ignorance of the warning despatched
to Sulaco.

The colonel was not the man to let any sort of dark-
ness stand in the way of the planned surprise. It ap-
peared to him a dead certainty ; his heart was set upon
his object with an ungovernable, childlike impatience.
Ever since the steamer had rounded Punta Mala, to
enter the deeper shadow of the gulf, he had remained on
the bridge in a group of oflScers as excited as himself.

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THE ISABELS 289

Distracted between the coaxings and menaces of Sotillo
and his Staff, the miserable commander of the steamer
kept her moving with as much prudence as they would
let him exercise. Some of them had been drinking
heavily, no doubt; but the prospect of laying hands
on so much wealth made them absurdly foolhardy, and,
at the same time, extremely anxious. The old major
of the battalion, a stupid, suspicious man, who had
never been afloat in his life, distinguished himself by
putting out suddenly the binnacle light, the only one
allowed on board for the necessities of navigation. He
could not understand of what use it could be for finding
the way. To the vehement protestations of the ship's
captain, he stamped his foot and tapped the handle of
his sword. "Aha! I have immasked you," he cried,
triumphantly. "You are tearing your hair from
despair at my acuteness. Am I a child to believe that
a light in that brass box can show you where the har-
bour is? I am an old soldier, I am. I can smell a
traitor a league off. You wanted that gleam to betray
our approach to your friend the Englishman. A thing
like that show you the way! What a miserable lie!
Qite picardial You Sulaco people are all in the pay of
those foreigners. You deserve to be run through the
body with my sword." Other oflScers, crowding round,
tried to calm his indignation, repeating persuasively,
"No, no! This is an appliance of the mariners, major.
This is no treachery." The captain of the transport
flimg himself face downwards on the bridge, and re-
fused to rise. "Put an end to me at once," he repeated
in a stifled voice. Sotillo had to interfere.

The uproar and confusion on the bridge became so
great that the helmsman fled from the wheel. He took
refuge in the engine-room, and alarmed the engineers,
who, disregarding the threats of the soldiers set on

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800 NOSTROMO

guard over them, stopped the engmes, protesting that
they would rather be shot than run the risk of being
drowned down below.

This was the first time Nostromo and Decoud heard
the steamer stop. After order had been restored, and
the binnacle lamp relighted, she went ahead again, pass-
ing wide of the lighter in her search for the Isabels. The
group could not be made out, and, at the pitiful en-
treaties of the captain, Sotillo allowed the engines to
be stopped again to wait for one of those periodical
lightenings of darkness caused by the shifting of the
cloud canopy spread above the waters of the gulf.

Sotillo, on the bridge, muttered from time to time
angrily to the captain. The other, in an apologetic
and cringing tone, begged su merced the colonel to take
into consideration the limitations put upon human
faculties by the darkness of the night. Sotillo swelled
with rage and impatience. It was the chance of a
lifetime.

"If your eyes are of no more use to you than this, I
shall have them put out," he yelled.

The captain of the steamer made no answer, for just
then the mass of the Great Isabel loomed up darkly
after a passing shower, then vanished, as if swept away
by a wave of greater obscurity preceding another down-
pour. This was enough for him. In the voice of a man
come back to life again, he informed Sotillo that in an
hour he would be alongside the Sulaco wharf. The
ship was put then full speed on the course, and a great
bustle of preparation for landing arose among the
soldiers on her deck.

It was heard distinctly by Decoud and Nostromo.
The Capataz imderstood its meaning. They had made
out the Isabels, and were going on now in a straight line
for Sulaco. He judged that they would pass close; but

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THE ISABELS 291

believed that lying still like this, with the sail lowered,
the lighter could not be seen. "No, not even if they
rubbed sides with us," he muttered.

The rain began to fall again; first like a wet mist, then
with a heavier touch, thickening into a smart, perpen-
dicular downpour; and the hiss and thump of the
approaching steamer was coming extremely near. De-
coud, with his eyes full of water, and lowered head,
asked himself how long it would be before she drew
past, when unexpectedly he felt a lurch. An inrush of
foam broke swishing over the stem, simultaneously with
a crack of timbers and a staggering shock. He had the
impression of an angry hand laying hold of the lighter
and dragging it along to destruction. The shock, of
course, had knocked him down, and he found himself
rolling in a lot of water at the bottom of the lighter. A
violent churning went on alongside; a strange and
amazed voice cried out something above him in the
night. He heard a piercing shriek for help from Senor
Hirsch. He kept his teeth hard set all the time. It
was a collision!

The steamer had struck the lighter obliquely, heeling
her over till she was half swamped, starting some of her
timbers, and swinging her head parallel to her own
course with the force of the blow. The shock of it on
board of her was hardly perceptible. All the violence
of that collision was, as usual, felt only on board the
smaller craft. Even Nostromo himself thought that
this was perhaps the end of his desperate adventure.
He, too, had been flimg away from the long tiller, which
took charge in the lurch. Next moment the steamer
would have passed on, leaving the lighter to sink or
swim after having shouldered her thus out of her way,
and without even getting a glimpse of her form, had it
<iot been that, being deeply laden with stores and the

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«92 NOSTROMO

great number of people on board, her anchor was low
enough to hook itself into one of the wire shrouds of the
lighter's mast. For the space of two or three gasping
breaths that new rope held against the sudden strain.
It was this that gave Decoud the sensation of the
snatching pull, dragging the lighter away to destruction.
The cause of it, of course, was inexplicable to him. The
whole thing was 30 sudden that he had no time to think.
But all his sensations were perfectly clear; he had kept
complete possession of himself; in fact, he was even
pleasantly aware of that calmness at the very moment
of being pitched head first over the transom, to struggle
on his back in a lot of water. Senor Hirsch's shriek he
had heard and recognized while he was regaining his feet,
always with that mysterious sensation of being dragged
headlong through the darkness. Not a word, not a
cry escaped him; he had no time to see anything; and
following upon the despairing screams for help, the
dragging motion ceased so suddenly that he staggered
forward with open arms and fell against the pile of the
treasure boxes. He climg to them instinctively, in the
vague apprehension of being flung about again; and
immediately he heard another lot of shrieks for help,
prolonged and despairing, not near him at all, but
unaccoimtably in the distance, away from the Kghter
altogether, as if some spirit in the night were mocking at
Sefior Hirsch's terror and despair.

Then all was still — as still as when you wake up in
your bed in a dark room from a bizarre and agitated
dream. The lighter rocked slightly; the rain was still
falling. Two groping hands took hold of his bruised
sides from behind, and the Capataz's voice whispered,
in his ear, "Silence, for your life! Silence! The
steamer has stopped."

Decoud listened. The gulf was dumb. He felt the

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THE ISABELS 293

water nearly up to his knees. "Are we sinking?'* he
asked in a faint breath.

"I don't know," Nostromo breathed back to him.
"Sefior, make not the slightest sound."

Hirsch, when ordered forward by Nostromo, had not
returned into his first hiding-place. He had fallen near
the mast, and had no strength to rise; moreover, he
feared to move. He had given himself up for dead, but
not on any rational grounds. It was simply a cruel and
terrifying feeling. Whenever he tried to think what
would become of him his teeth would start chattering
violently. He was too absorbed in the utter misery
of his fear to take notice of anything.

Though he was stifling imder the lighter's sail which
Nostromo had unwittingly lowered on top of him, he
did not even dare to put out his head till the very
moment of the steamer striking. Then, indeed, he
leaped right out, spurred on to new miracles of bodily
vigour by this new shape of danger. The inrush of
water when the lighter heeled over imsealed his lips.
His shriek, "Save me!" was the first distinct warning of
the collision for the people on board the steamer. Next
moment the wire shroud parted, and the released anchor
swept over the lighter's forecastle. It came aga'inst the
breast of Senor Hirsch, who simply seized hold of it,
without in the least knowing what it was, but curling
his arms and legs upon the part above the fluke with an
invincible, unreasonable tenacity. The lighter yawed
off wide, and the steamer, moving on, carried him away,
clinging hard, and shouting for help. It was some
time, however, after the steamer had stopped that his
position was discovered. His sustained yelping for
help seemed to come from somebody swimming in the
water. At last a couple of men went over the bows and
hauled him on board. He was carried straight off to

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294 NOSTROMO

Sotillo on the bridge. His examination confirmed the
impression that some craft had been run over and simk,
but it was impracticable on such a dark night to look for
the positive proof of floating wreckage. Sotillo was
more anxious than ever now to enter the harbour with-
out loss of time; the idea that he had destroyed the
principal object of his expedition was too intolerable to
be accepted. This feeling made the story he had heard
appear the more incredible. Senor Hirsch, after being
beaten a little for telling lies, was thrust into the chart-
room. But he was beaten only a little. His tale had
taken the heart out of Sotillo's StafiF, though they all
repeated round their chief, "Impossible! impossible!"
with the exception of the old major, who triumphed
gloomily.

"I told you; I told you,'* he mumbled. "I could
smell some treachery, some diahleria a league off."

Meantime, the steamer had kept on her way towards
Sulaco, where only the truth of that matter could be
ascertained. Decoud and Nostromo heard the loud
churning of her propeller diminish and die out; and
then, with no useless words, busied themselves in mak-
ing for the Isabels. The last shower had brought with
it a gentle but steady breeze. The danger was not
over yet, and there was no time for talk. The lighter
was leaking like a sieve. They splashed in the water
at every step. The Capataz put into Decoud's hands
the handle of the pump which was fitted at the side
aft, and at once, without question or remark, De-
coud began to pump in utter forgetfulness of every
desire but that of keeping the treasure afloat. Nos-
tromo hoisted the sail, flew back to the tiller, pulled
at the sheet like mad. The short flare of a match
(they had been kept dry in a tight tin box, though
the man himself was completely wet), disclosed to

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THE ISABELS 295

the toiling Decoud the eagerness of his face, bent low
over the box of the compass, and the attentive stare
of his eyes. He knew now where he was, and he hoped
to run the sinking lighter ashore in the shallow cove
where the high, clifiF-like end of the Great Isabel is
divided in two equal parts by a deep and overgrown
ravine.

Decoud pumped without intermission. Nostromo
steered without relaxing for a second the intense, peer-
ing effort of his stare. Each of them was as if utterly
alone with his task. It did not occur to them to speak.
There was nothing in common between them but the
knowledge that the damaged lighter must be slowly
but surely sinking. In that knowledge, which was like
the crucial test of their desires, they seemed to have
become completely estranged, as if they had discovered
BL the very shock of the collision that the loss of the
lighter would not mean the same thing to them both.
This common danger brought their differences in aim, in
view, in character, and in position, into absolute promi-
nence in the private vision of each. There was no bond
of conviction, of common idea; they were merely two
adventurers pursuing each his own adventure, involved
in the same imminence of deadly peril. Therefore they
had nothing to say to each other. But this peril, .this
only incontrovertible truth in which they shared,
seemed to act as an inspiration to their mental and
bodily powers.

There was certainly something almost miraculous in
the way the Capataz made the cove with nothing but
the shadowy hint of the island's shape and the vague
gleam of a small sandy strip for a guide. Where the
ravine opens between the cUffs, and a slender, shallow
rivulet meanders out of the bushes to lose itself in the
sea, the Ughter was run ashore; and the two men, with

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296 NOSTROMO

a taciturn, undaunted energy, began to discharge her
precious freight, carrying each ox-hide box up the bed
of the rivulet beyond the bushes to a hollow place which
the caving in of the soil had made below the roots of a
large tree. Its big smooth trunk leaned like a falUng
column far over the trickle of water running amongst
the loose stones.

A couple of years before Nostromo had spent a whole
Sunday, all alone, exploring the island. He explained
this to Decoud after their task was done, and they sat,
weary in every limb, with their legs hanging down the
low bank, and their backs against the tree, like a pair
of blind men aware of each other and their surroundings
by some indefinable sixth sense.

"Yes,'' Nostromo repeated, "I never forget a place
I have carefully looked at once." He spoke slowly, al-
most lazily, as if there had been a whole leisurely life
before him, instead of the scanty two hours before day-
light. The existence of the treasure, barely concealed
in this improbable spot, laid a burden of secrecy upon
every contemplated step, upon every intention and plan
of future conduct. He felt the partial failure of this
desperate affair entrusted to the great reputation he had
known how to make for himself. However, it was also
a partial success. His vanity was half appeased. His
nervous irritation had subsided.

"You never know what may be of use," he pursued
with his usual quietness of tone and manner. "I spent
a whole miserable Sunday in exploring this crumb of
land."

"A misanthropic sort of occupation," muttered De-
coud, viciously. "You had no money, I suppose, to
gamble with, and to fling about amongst the girls in
yoiur usual haunts, Capataz."

"^ veroV exclaimed the Capataz, surprised into the

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THE ISABELS 297

use of his native tongue by so much perspicacity. "I
had not ! Therefore I did not want to go amongst those
beggarly people accustomed to my generosity. It is
looked for from the Capataz of the Cargadores, who
are the rich naen, and, as it were, the Caballeros amongst
the common people. I don't care for cards but as a
pastime; and as to those girls that boast of having
opened their doors to my knock, you know I wouldn't
look at any one of them twice except for what the
people would say. They are queer, the good people of
Sulaco, and I have got much useful information simply
by listening patiently to the talk of the women that
everybody believed I was in love with. Poor Teresa
could never understand that. On that particular Sun-
day, seflor, she scolded so that I went out of the house
swearing that I would never darken their door again un-
less to fetch away my hammock and my chest of clothes.
Senor, there is nothing more exasperating than to hear
a woman you respect rail against your good reputation
when you have not a single brass coin in your pocket.
I untied one of the small boats and pulled myself out
of the harbour with nothing but three cigars in my
pocket to help me spend the day on this island. But
the water of this rivulet you hear under your feet is cool
and sweet and good, seilor, both before and after a
smoke." He was silent for a while, then added re-
flectively, "That was the first Sunday after I brought
down the white-whiskered English rico all the way
down the mountains from the Paramo on the top of the
Entrada Pass — and in the coach, too! No coach had
gone up or down that mountain road within the memory
of man, seflor, till I brought this one down in charge of
fifty peons working like one man with ropes, pickaxes,
and poles under my direction. That was the rich
Englishman who, as people say, pays for the making of

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298 NOSTROMO

this railway. He was very pleased with me. But my
wages were not due till the end of the month."

He slid down the bank suddenly. Decoud heard the
splash of his feet in the brook and followed his footsteps
down the ravine. His form was lost among the bushes
till he had reached the strip of sand under the cliff.
As often happens in the gulf when the showers
during the first part of the night had been frequent and
heavy, the darkness had thinned considerably towards
the morning though there were no signs of daylight
as yet.

The cargo-lighter, relieved of its precious burden,
rocked feebly, half -afloat, with her fore-foot on the sand.
A long rope stretched away like a black cotton thread
across the strip of white beach to the grapnel Nostromo
had carried ashore and hooked to the stem of a tree-like
shrub in the very opening of the ravine.

There was nothing for Decoud but to remain on the
island. He received from Nostromo's hands whatever
food the foresight of Captain Mitchell had put on
board the lighter and deposited it temporarily in the
little dinghy which on their arrival they had hauled up
out of sight amongst the bushes. It was to be left with
him. The island was to be a hiding-place, not a prison;
he could pull out to a passing ship. The O. S.N. Com-
pany's mail boats passed close to the islands when going
into Sulaco from the north. But the Minervay carrying
off the ex-president, had taken the news up north of the
disturbances in Sulaco. It was possible that the next
steamer down would get instructions to miss the port
altogether since the town, as far as the Minerva^s
oflScers knew, was for the time being in the hands of the
rabble. This would mean that there would be no
steamer for a month, as far as the mail service went; but
Decoud had to take his chance of that. The island was

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THE ISABELS 299

his only shelter from the proscription hanging over his
head. The Capataz was, of course, going back. The
unloaded lighter leaked much less, and he thought that
she would keep afloat as far as the harbour.

He passed to Decoud, standing knee-deep alongside,
one of the two spades which belonged to the equipment
of each lighter for use when ballasting ships. By work-
ing with it carefully as soon as there was daylight
enough to see, Decoud could loosen a mass of earth and
stones overhanging the cavity in which they had
deposited the treasure, so that it would look as if it had
fallen naturally. It would cover up not only the cavity,
but even all traces of their work, the footsteps, the dis-
placed stones, and even the broken bushes.

"Besides, who would think of looking either for you
or the treasure here?" Nostromo continued, as if he
could not tear himself away from the spot. "Nobody
is ever likely to come here. What could any man want
with this piece of earth as long as there is room for his
feet on the mainland! The people in this country are
not curious. There are even no fishermen here to in-
trude upon your worship. All the fishing that is done
in the gulf goes on near Zapiga, over there. Senor, if
you are forced to leave this island before anything can
be arranged for you, do not try to make for Zapiga. It
is a settlement of thieves and matreros, where they
would cut your throat promptly for the sake of your
gold watch and chain. And, sefior, think twice before
confiding in any one whatever; even in the oflBcers of
the Company's steamers, if you ever get on board one.
Honesty alone is not enough for security. You must
look to discretion and prudence in a man. And always
remember, senor, before you open your lips for a con-/
fidence, that this treasure may be left safely here for
hundreds of years. Time is on its side, sefior. And

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300 NOSTROMO

Sliver is an incorruptible metal that can be trusted to
keep its value for ever. ... An incorruptible
I metal," he repeated, as if the idea had given him a pro-
found pleasure.

"As some men are said to be," Decoud pronounced,
inscrutably, while the Capataz, who busied himself in
baling out the lighter with a wooden bucket, went on
throwing the water over the side with a regular splash.
Decoud, incorrigible in his scepticism, reflected, not
cynically, but with general satisfaction, that this man
was made incorruptible by his enormous vanity, that
finest form of egoism which can take on the aspect of
every virtue.

Nostromo ceased baling, and, as if struck with a
sudden thought, dropped the bucket with a clatter into
the lighter.

"Have you any message?" he asked in a lowered
voice. "Remember, I shall be asked questions."

"You must find the hopeful words that ought to be
spoken to the people in town. I trust for that your
intelligence and your experience, Capataz. You under-
stand?"

"Si, seflor. . . . For the ladies."

"Yes, yes," said Decoud, hastily. "Your wonderful
reputation will make them attach great value to your
words; therefore be careful what you say. I am look-
ing forward," he continued, feeling the fatal touch of
contempt for himself to which his complex nature was
subject, "I am looking forward to a glorious and suc-
cessful ending to my mission. Do you hear, Capataz?
Use the words glorious and successful when you speak
to the seliorita. Your own mission is accomplished
gloriously and successfully. You have indubitably
saved the silver of the mine. Not only this silver, but
probably all the silver that shall eveu come out of it."_

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THE ISABELS 301

Nostromo detected the ironic tone. "I dare say,
Seflor Don Martin," he said, moodily. " There are very
few things that I am not equal to. Ask the foreign
signori. I, a man of the people, who cannot always
understand what you mean. But as to this lot
which I must leave here, let me tell you that I would
believe it in greater safety if you had not been with
me at all."

An exclamation escaped Decoud, and a short pause
followed. "Shall I go back with you to Sulaco?" he
asked in an angry tone.

"Shall I strike you dead with my knife where you
stand?" retorted Nostromo, contemptuously. "It
would be the same thing as taking you to Sulaco.
Come, seflor. Your reputation is in your politics, and
mine is bound up with the fate of this silver. Do you
wonder I wish there had been no other man to share my
knowledge? I wanted no one with me, seflor."

"You could not have kept the lighter afloat without
me," Decoud almost shouted. "You would have gone
to the bottom with her."

"Yes," uttered Nostromo, slowly; "alone."

Here was a man, Decoud reflected, that seemed as
though he would have preferred to die rather than de-
face the perfect form of his egoism. Such a man was
safe. In silence he helped the Capataz to get the grap-
nel on board. Nostromo cleared the shelving shore
with one push of the heavy oar, and Decoud found him-
self solitary on the beach like a man in a dream. A
sudden desire to hear a human voice once more seized
upon his heart. The lighter was hardly distinguishable
from the black water upon which she floated.

"What do you think has become of Hirsch?" he'
shouted.

"Knocked overboard and drowned," cried Nos-

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302 NOSTROMO

tromo's voice confidently out of the black wastes of sky
and sea around the islet. "Keep close in the ravine,
senor. I shall try to come out to you in a night or
two."

A slight swishing rustle showed that Nostromo was
setting the sail. It filled all at once with a sound as of
a single loud drum-tap. Decoud went back to the
ravine. Nostromo, at the tiller, looked back from
time to time at the vanishing mass of the Great Isabel,
which, little by little, merged into the uniform texture
of the night. At last, when he turned his head
again, he saw nothing but a smooth darkness, like a
solid wall.

Then he, too, experienced that feeling of solitude
which had weighed heavily on Decoud after the lighter
had slipped off the shore. But while the man on the
island was oppressed by a bizarre sense of unreality
affecting the very groimd upon which he walked, the
mind of the Capataz of the Cargadores turned alertly
to the problem of future conduct. Nostromo's faculties,
working on parallel lines, enabled him to steer straight,
to keep a look-out for Hermosa, near which he had to
pass, and to try to imagine what would happen to-
morrow in Sulaco. To-morrow, or, as a matter of fact,
to-day, since the dawn was not very far, Sotillo would
find out in what way the treasure had gone. A gang qf
Cargadores had been employed in loading it into a rail-
way truck from the Custom House store-rooms, and
running the truck on to the wharf. There would be
arrests made, and certainly before noon Sotillo would
know in what manner the silver had left Sulaco, and
who it was that took it out.

Nostromo's intention had been to sail right into the
harbour; but at this thought by a sudden touch of the
tiller he threw the lighter into the wind and checked

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THE ISABELS 303

her rapid way. His re-appearance with the very boat
would raise suspicions, would cause surmises, would
absolutely put Sotillo on the track. He himself would
be arrested; and once in the Calabozo there was no
saying what they would do to him to make him speak.
He trusted himself, but he stood up to look round.
Near by, Hermosa showed low its white surface as flat
as a table, with the slight run of the sea raised by the
breeze washing over its edges noisily. The lighter
must be sunk at once.

He allowed her to drift with her sail aback. There
was already a good deal of water in her. He allowed
her to drift towards the harbour entrance, and, letting
the tiller swing about, squatted down and busied himself
in loosening the plug. With that out she would fill
very quickly, and every lighter carried a little iron
ballast — enough to make her go down when full of
water. When he stood up again the noisy wash about
the Hermosa sounded far away, almost inaudible; and
already he could make out the shape of land about the
harbour entrance. This was a desperate affair, and he
was a good swimmer. A mile was nothing to him, and
he knew of an easy place for landing just below the
earthworks of the old abandoned fort. It occurred to
him with a peculiar fascination that this fort was a good
place in which to sleep the day through after so many
sleepless nights.

With one blow of the tiller he unshipped for the pur-
pose, he knocked the plug out, but did not take the
trouble to lower the sail. He felt the water welling up
heavily about his legs before he leaped on to the taffrail.
There, upright and motionless, in his shirt and trousers
only, he stood waiting. When he had felt her settle he
sprang far away with a mighty splash.

At once he turned his head. The gloomy, cloude^l

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804 NOSTROMO

dawn from behind the mountains showed him on the
smooth waters the upper comer of the sail, a dark wet
triangle of canvas waving slightly to and fro. He saw
it vanish, as if jerked under, and then struck out for the
shorv.

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PART THIRD

THE UGHTHOUSBS

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CHAPTER ONE

Directly the cargo boat had slipped away from the
wharf and got lost in the darkness of the harbour the
Europeans of Sulaco separated, to prepare for the com-
ing of the Monterist rigime^ which was approaching
Sulaco from the mountains, as well as from the sea.

This bit of manual work in loading the silver was
their last concerted action. It ended the three days of
danger, during which, according to the newspaper press
of Europe, their energy had preserved the town from the
calamities of popular disorder. At the shore end of the
jetty. Captain Mitchell said good-night and turned
back. His intention was to walk the planks of the
wharf till the steamer from Esmeralda turned up. The
engineers of the railway staff, collecting their Basque
and Italian workmen, marched them away to the rail-
way yards, leaving the Custom House, so well defended
on the first day of the riot, standing open to the four
winds of heaven. Their men had conducted themselves
bravely and faithfully during the famous "three days"
of Sulaco. In a great part this faithfulness and that
courage had been exercised in self-defence rather than
in the cause of those material interests to which Charles
Gould had pinned his faith. Amongst the cries of the
mob not the least loud had been the cry of death to
foreigners. It was, indeed, a lucky circumstance for
Sulaco that the relations of those imported workmen
with the people of the country had been uniformly bad
from the first.

Doctor Monygham, going to the door of Viola's

307

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SOS NOSTROMO

kitchen, observed this retreat marking the end of the
foreign interference, this withdrawal of the army of
material progress from the field of Costaguana revolu-
tions.

Algarrobe torches carried on the outskirts of the
moving body sent their penetrating aroma into his
nostrils. Their light, sweeping along the front of the
house, made the letters of the inscription, "Albergo
d'ltalia Una," leap out black from end to end of the
long wall. His eyes blinked in the clear blaze. Several
young men, mostly fair and tall, shepherding this mob
of dark bronzed heads, surmounted by the glint of
slanting Tifle barrels, nodded to him familiarly as they
went by. The doctor was a well-known character.
Some of them wondered what he was doing there.
Then, on the flank of their workmen they tramped on,
following the line of rails.

"Withdrawing your people from the harbour?"
said the doctor, addressing himself to the chief engineer
of the railway, who had accompanied Charles Gould so
far on his way to the town, walking by the side of the
horse, with his hand on the saddle-bow. They had
stopped just outside the open door to let the workmen
cross the road.

"As quick as I can. We are not a political faction,"
answered the engineer, meaningly. "And we are not
going to give our new rulers a handle against the rail-
way. You approve me, Gould?"

"Absolutely," said Charles Gould's impassive voice,
high up and outside the dim parallelogram of light fall-
ing on the road through the open door.

With Sotillo expected from one side, and Pedro
Montero from the other, the engineer-in-chief's only
anxiety now was to avoid a collision with either. Sulaco,
tor him, was a railway station, a terminus, workshops.

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a great accumulation of stores. As against the mob
the railway defended its property, but politically the
railway was neutral. He was a brave man; and in that
spirit of neutrality he had carried proposals of truce to
the self-appointed chiefs of the popular party, the
deputies Fuentes and Gamacho. Bullets were still
flying about when he had crossed the Plaza on that
mission, waving above his head a white napkin belong-
ing to the table linen of the Amarilla Club.

He was rather proud of this exploit; and reflecting
that the doctor, busy all day with the wounded in the
patio of the Casa Gould, had not had time to hear the
news, he began a succinct narrative. He had communi-
cated to them the intelligence from the Construction
Camp as to Pedro Montero. The brother of the vic-
torious general, he had assured them, could be expected
at Sulaco at any time now. This news (as he antici-
pated), when shouted out of the window by Sefior
Gamacho, induced a rush of the mob along the Campo
Road towards Rincon. The two deputies also, after
shaking hands with him effusively, mounted and
galloped off to meet the great man. "I have misled
them a little as to the time,'\the chief engineer con-
fessed. "However hard he rides, he can scarcely get
here before the morning. But my object is attained.
IVe secured several hours' peace for the losing party.
But I did not tell them anything about Sotillo, for fear
they would take it into their heads to try to get hold
of the harbour again, either to oppose him or welcome
him — there's no saying which. There was Gould's
silver, on which rests the remnant of our hopes. De-
coud's retreat tad to be thought of, too. I think the
railway has done pretty well by its friends without com-
promising itself hopelessly. Now the parties must be
left to themselves."

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310 NOSTROMO

"Costaguana for the Costaguaneros," interjected the
doctor, sardonically. "It is a fine country, and they
have raised a fine crop of hates, vengeance, murder,
and rapine — those sons of the country."

"Well, I am one of them," Charles Gould's voice
sounded, calmly, "and I must be going on to see to my
own crop of trouble. My wife has driven straight on,
doctor?"

"Yes. All was quiet on this side. Mrs. Gould has
taken the two girls with her."

Charles Gould rode on, and the engineer-in-chief
followed the doctor indoors.

"That man is calmness personified," he said, appre-
ciatively, dropping on a bench, and stretching his well-
shaped legs in cycling stockings nearly across the door-
way. "He must be extremely sure of himself."

"If that's all he is sure of, then he is sure of nothing,"
said the doctor. He had perched himself again on the
end of the table. He nursed his cheek in the palm of
one hand, while the other sustained the elbow. "It is
the last thing a man ought to be sure of." The candle,
half-consumed and burning dimly with a long wick,
lighted up from below his inclined face, whose expression
affected by the drawn-in cicatrices in the cheeks, had
something vaguely unnatural, an exaggerated remorse-
ful bitterness. As he sat there he had the air of medi-
tating upon sinister things. The engineer-in-chief
gazed at him for a time before he protested.

"I really don't see that. For me there seems to be
nothing else. However "

He was a wise man, but he could not quite conceal
his contempt for that sort of paradox; in fact. Dr.
Monygham was not liked by the Europeans of Sulaco.
His outward aspect of an outcast, which he preserved
even in Mrs. Gould's drawing-room, provoked un*

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 311

favourable criticism. There could be no doubt of his
intelligence; and as he had lived for over twenty years
in the country, the pessimism of his outlook could not be
altogether ignored. But instinctively, in self-defence
of their activities and hopes, his hearers put it to the
account of some hidden imperfection in the man's
character. It was known that many years before,
when quite young, he had been made by Guzman Bento
chief medical oflBcer of the army. Not one of the
Europeans then in the service of Costaguana had been
so much liked and trusted by the fierce old Dictator.

Afterwards his story was not so clear. It lost itself
amongst the innmnerable tales of conspiracies and
plots against the tyrant as a stream is lost in an arid
belt of sandy country before it emerges, diminished and
troubled, perhaps, on the other side. The doctor made
no secret of it that he had lived for years in the wildest
parts of the Republic, wandering with almost unknown
Indian tribes in the great forests of the far interior where
the great rivers have their sources. But it was mere
aimless wandering; he had written nothing, collected
nothing, brought nothing for science out of the twilight
of the forests, which seemed to cling to his battered
personality limping about Sulaco, where it had drifted in^
casually, only to get stranded on the shores of the sea.

It was also known that he had lived in a state of
destitution till the arrival of the Goulds from Europe.
Don Carlos and Dofia Emilia had taken up the mad
English doctor, when it became apparent that for all
his savage independence he could be tamed by kindness.
Perhaps it was only himger that had tamed him. In
years gone by he had certainly been acquainted with
Charles Gould's father in Sta. Marta; and now, no
matter what were the dark passages of his history, as the
medical oflScer of the San Tome mine he became a recog-

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312 NOSTROMO

nized personality. He was recognized, but not unre-
servedly accepted. So much defiant eccentricity and
such an outspoken scorn for mankind seemed to point to
mere recklessness of judgment, the bravado of guilt.
Besides, since he had become again of some account,
vague whispers had been heard that years ago, .when
fallen into disgrace and thrown into prison by Guzman
Bento at the time of the so-called Great Conspiracy, he
had betrayed some of his best friends amongst the
conspirators. Nobody pretended to believe that whis-
per; the whole story of the Great Conspiracy was
hopelessly involved and oljscure; it is admitted in Costa-
guana that there never had been a conspiracy except in
the diseased imagination of the Tyrant; and, therefore,
nothing and no one to betray; though the most dis-
tinguished Costaguaneros had been imprisoned and
executed upon that accusation. The procedure had
dragged on for years, decimating the better class like
a pestilence. The mere expression of sorrow for the
fate of executed kinsmen had been punished with death.
Don Jose Avellanos was perhaps the only one living who
knew the whole story of those unspeakable cruelties.
He had suflFered from them himself, and he, with a
shrug of the shoulders and a nervous, jerky gestiu-e of
the arm, was wont to put away from him, as it were,
every allusion to it. But whatever the reason, Dr.
Monygham, a personage in the administration of the
Gould Concession, treated with reverent awe by the
miners, and indulged in his peculiarities by Mrs»
Gould, remained somehow outside the pale.

It was not from any liking for the doctor that the
engineer-in-chief had lingered in the inn upon the plain.
He liked old Viola much better. He had come to look
upon the Albergo d'ltalia Una as a dependence of the
railway. Many of his subordinates had their quarters

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 313

there. Mrs. Gould's interest in the family conferred
upon it a sort of distinction. The engineer-in-chief,
with an army of workers under his orders, appreciated
the moral influence of the old Garibaldino upon his
countrymen. His austere, old-world Republicanism
had a severe, soldier-like standard of faithfulness and
duty, as if the world were a battlefield where men had
to fight for the sake of universal love and brotherhood,
instead of a more or less large share of booty.

"Poor old chap!" he said, after he had heard the
doctor's account of Teresa. "He'll never be able t(y^
keep the place going by himself. I shall be sorry."

"He's quite alone up there," grunted Doctor Monyg-
ham, with a toss of his heavy head towards the narrow
staircase. "Every living soiil has cleared out, and Mrs.
Gould took the girls away just now. It might not be
over-safe for them out here before very long. Of
course, as a doctor I can do nothing more here; but she
has asked me to stay with old Viola, and as I have no
horse to get back to the mine, where I ought to be, I
made no diflSculty to stay. They can do without me in
the town."

"I have a good mind to remain with you, doctor, till
we see whether anything happens to-night at the
harbour," declared the engineer-in-chief. "He must
not be molested by Sotillo's soldiery, who may push on
as far as this at once. Sotillo used to be very cordial
to me at the Goulds' and at the club. How that man'U
ever dare to look any of his friends here in the face I
can't imagine."

"He'll no doubt begin by shooting some of them to i
get over the first awkwardness," said the doctor. /
"Nothing in this country serves better your military
man who has changed sides than a few summary
executions." He spoke with a gloomy positiveness

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314 NOSTROMO

that left no room for protest. The engineer-in-chief
did not attempt any. He simply nodded several
times regretfully, then said —

"I think we shall be able to mount you in the morn-
ing, doctor. Our peons have recovered some of our
stampeded horses. By riding hard and taking a wide
circuit by Los Hatos and along the edge of the forest,
clear of Rincon altogether, you may hope to reach the
San Tome bridge without being interfered with. The
mine is just now, to my mind, the safest place for any-
body at all compromised. I only wish the railway was
as diflScult to touch.'*

"Am I compromised?" Doctor Monygham brought
out slowly after a short silence.

"The whole Gould Concession is compromised. It
could not have remained for ever outside the political
life of the coimtry — if those convulsions may be called
life. The thing is — can it be touched? The moment
was bound to come when neutrality would become im-
possible, and Charles Gould understood this well. I
believe he is prepared for every extremity. A man of
his sort has never contemplated remaining indefinitely
at the mercy of ignorance and corruption. It was like
being a prisoner in a cavern of banditti with the price of
your ransom in your pocket, and buying your life from
day to day. Your mere safety, not your liberty, mind,
doctor. I know what I am talking about. The image
at which you shrug your shoulders is perfectly correct,
especially if you conceive such a prisoner endowed with
the power of replenishing his pocket by means as remote
from the faculties of his captors as if they were magic.
You must have understood that as well as I do, doctor.
He was in the position of the goose with the golden
eggs. I broached this matter to him as far back as Sir
John's visit here. The prisoner of stupid and greedy

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 315

banditti is always at the mercy of the first imbecile
ruffian, who may blow out his brains in a fit of temper or
for some prospect of an immediate big haul. The tale of
killing the goose with the golden eggs has not been
evolved for nothing out of the wisdom of mankind. It
is a story that will never grow old. That is why
Charles Gould in his deep, dumb way has countenanced
the Ribierist Mandate, the first public act that promised
him safety on other than venal grounds. Ribierism has
failed, as everything merely rational fails in this
country. But Gould remains logical in wishing to save
this big lot of silver. Decoud's plan of a counter-
revolution may be practicable or not, it may have a
chance, or it may not have a chance. With all my
experience of this revolutionary continent, I can hardly
yet look at their methods seriously. Decoud has been
reading to us his draft of a proclamation, and talking
very well for two hours about his plan of action. He
had arguments which should have appeared solid
enough if we, members of old, stable political and
national organizations, were not startled by the mere
idea of a new State evolved like this out of the head of a
scoffing young man fleeing for his life, with a proclama-
tion in his pocket, to a rough, jeering, half-bred swash-
buckler, who in this part of the world is called a general.
It sounds like a comic fairy tale — and behold, it may
come off; because it is true to the very spirit of the
country."

"Is the silver gone off, then?" asked the doctor,
moodily.

The chief engineer pulled out his watch. "By
Captain Mitchell's reckoning — and he ought to know —
it has been gone long enough now to be some three or
four miles outside the harbour; and, as Mitchell says,
Nostromo is the sort of seaman to make the best of his

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316 NOSTROMO

opportunities." Here the doctor grunted so heavily that
the other changed his tone.

" You have a poor opinion of that move, doctor? But
why? Charles Gould has got to play his game out,
though he is not the man to formulate his conduct even
to himself, perhaps, let alone to others. It may be that
the game has been partly suggested to him by Holroyd;
but it accords with his character, too; and that is why it
has been so successful. Haven't they come to calling
him "El Rey de Sulaco' in Sta. Marta? A nickname
may be the best record of a success. That's what I call
putting the face of a joke upon the body of a truth. My
dear sir, when I first arrived in Sta. Marta I was struck
by the way all those journalists, demagogues, members
of Congress, and all those generals and judges cringed
before a sleepy-eyed advocate without practice simply
because he was the plenipotentiary of the Gould Conces-
sion. Sir John when he came out was impressed, too."

"A new State, with that plump dandy, Decoud, for
the first President," mused Dr. Monygham, nursing his
cheek and swinging his legs all the time.

"Upon my word, and why not?" the chief engineer
retorted in an unexpectedly earnest and confidential
voice. It was as if something subtle in the air of
Costaguana had inoculated him with the local faith in
"pronunciamientos." All at once he began to talk, like !
an expert revolutionist, of the instrument ready to hand
in the intact army at Cayta, which could be brought
back in a few days to Sulaco if only Decoud managed to
make his way at once down the coast. For the military
chief there was Barrios, who had nothing but a bullet to
expect from Montero, his former professional rival and
bitter enemy. Barrios's concurrence was assured. As
to his army, it had nothing to expect from Montero
either; not even a month's pay. From that point of

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 317

view the existence of the treasure was of enormous
importance. The mere knowledge that it had been y
saved from the Monterists would be a strong induce- /
ment for the Cayta troops to embrace the cause of the
new State.

The doctor turned round and contemplated his com-
panion for some time.

"This Decoud, I see, is a persuasive young beggar,"
he remarked at last. "And pray is it for this, then,
that Charles Gould has let the whole lot of ingots go
out to sea in charge of that Nostromo?"

"Charles Gould," said the engineer-in-chief, "has
said no more about his motive than usual. You know,
he doesn't talk. But we all here know his motive, and
he has only one — the safety of the San Tome mine with
the preservation of the Gould Concession in the spirit
of his compact with Holroyd. Holroyd is another un-
common man. They understand each other's imagina-
tive side. One is thirty, the other nearly sixty, and
they have been made for each other. To be a million-
aire, and such a millionaire as Holroyd, is like being
eternally young. The audacity of youth reckons upon
what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal; but a
millionaire has unlimited means in his hand — which is
better. One's time on earth is an uncertain quantity,
but about the long reach of millions there is no doubt.
The introduction of a pure form of Christianity into this
continent is a dream for a youthful enthusiast, and I /
have been trying to explain to you why Holroyd at
fifty-eight is like a man on the threshold of life, and
better, too. He's not a missionary, but the San Tome
mine holds just that for him. I assure you, in sober
truth, that he could not manage to keep this out of a
strictly business conference upon the finances of Cos-
taguana he had with Sir John a couple of years ago.

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318 NOSTROMO

Sir John mentioned it with amazement in a letter he
wrote to me here, from San Francisco, when on his way
home. Upon my word, doctor, things seem to be worth
nothing by what they are in themselves. I begin to
believe that the only solid thing about them is the
spiritual value which everyone discovers in his own
form of activity "

"Bah!" interrupted the doctor, without stopping for
an instant the idle swinging movement of his legs.
"Self-flattery. Food for that vanity which makes the
world go round. Meantime, what do you think is
going to happen to the treasure floating about the gulf
with the great Capataz and the great politician?"

"Why are you uneasy about it, doctor?"

"I uneasy! And what the devil is it to me? I put
no spiritual value into my desires, or my opinions, or my
actions. They have not enough vastness to give me
room for self-flattery. Look, for instance, I should cer-
tainly have liked to ease the last moments of that poor
woman. And I can't. It's impossible. Have you met
the impossible face to face — or have you, the Napoleon
of railways, no such word in your dictionary?"

"Is she bound to have a very bad time of it?" asked
the chief engineer, with humane concern.

Slow, heavy footsteps moved across the planks above
the heavy hard wood beams of the kitchen. Then
down the narrow opening of the staircase made in the
thickness of the wall, and narrow enough to be defended
by one man against twenty enemies, came the murmur
of two voices, one faint and broken, the other deep and
gentle answering it, and in its graver tone covering the
weaker sound.

The two men remained still and silent till the mur-
murs ceased, then the doctor shrugged his shoulders and
muttered —

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 319

"Yes, she's bound to. And I could do nothing if I
went up now."

A long period of silence above and below ensued.

"I fancy," began the engineer, in a subdued voice,
"that you mistrust Captain Mitchell's Capataz."

"Mistrust him!" muttered the doctor through his
teeth. "I believe him capable of anything — even of
the most absurd fidelity. I am the last person he spoke
to before he left the wharf, you know. The poor
woman up there wanted to -see him, and I let him go up
to her. The dying must not be contradicted, you
know. She seemed then fairly calm and resigned, but
the scoundrel in those ten minutes or so has done or
said something which seems to have driven her into
despair. You know," went on the doctor, hesitatingly,
"women are so very unaccountable in every position,
and at all times of life, that I thought sometimes she
was in a way, don't you see? in love with him — the
Capataz. The rascal has his own charm indubitably,
or he would not have made the conquest of all the
populace of the town. No, no, I am not absurd. I
may have given a wrong name to some strong senti-
ment for him on her part, to an imreasonable and
simple attitude a woman is apt to take up emotionally
towards a man. She used to abuse him to me fre-
quently, which, of course, is not inconsistent with my
idea. Not at all. It looked to me as if she were al-
ways thinking of him. He was something important
in her life. You know, I have seen a lot of those people.
Whenever I came down from the mine Mrs. Gould used
to ask me to keep my eye on them. She likes Italians;
she has lived a long time in Italy, I believe, and she took
a special fancy to that old Garibaldino. A remarkable
chap enough. A rugged and dreamy character, living
in the republicanism of his young days as if in a cloud.

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320 NOSTROMO

He has encouraged much of the Capataz's confounded
nonsense — the high-strung, exalted old beggar!"

"What sort of nonsense?" wondered the chief engi-
neer. "I found the Capataz always a very shrewd
and sensible fellow, absolutely fearless, and remarkably
useful. A perfect handy man. Sir John was greatly
impressed by his resourcefulness and attention when he
made that overland journey from Sta. Marta. Later
on, as you might have heard, he rendered us a service
by disclosing to the then chief of police the presence in
the town of some professional thieves, who came from a
distance to wreck and rob our monthly pay train. He
has certainly organized the lighterage service of the
harbour for the O.S.N. Company with great ability.
He knows how to make himself obeyed, foreigner though
he is. It is true that the Cargadgres are strangers here,
too, for the most part — immigrants, Islenos."

"His prestige is his fortune," muttered the doctor,
sourly.

"The man has proved his trustworthiness up to the
hilt on innumerable occasions and in all sorts of ways,"
argued the engineer. "When this question of the silver
arose. Captain Mitchell naturally was very warmly of
the opinion that his Capataz was the only man fit for
the trust. As a sailor, of course, I suppose so. But as
a man, don't you know, Gould, Decoud, and myself
judged that it didn't matter in the least who went.
Any boatman would have done just as well. Pray,
what could a thief do with such a lot of ingots? If he
ran off with them he would have in the end to land some-
where, and how could he conceal his cargo from the
knowledge of the people ashore? We dismissed that
consideration from our minds. Moreover, Decoud was
going. There have been occasions when the Capataz
has been more implicitly trusted."

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 321

"He took a slightly different view," the doctor said.
"I heard him declare in this very room that it would be
the most desperate affair of his life. He made a sort of
verbal will here in my hearing, appointing old Viola his
executor; and, by Jove! do you know, he — he's not
grown rich by his fidelity to you good people of the rail-
way and the harbour. I suppose he obtains some —
how do you say that? — some spiritual value for his
labours, or else I don't know why the devil he should
be faithful to you, Gould, Mitchell, or anybody else.
He knows this country well. He knows, for instance,
that Gamacho, the Deputy from Javira, has been noth-
ing else but a 'tramposo' of the commonest sort, a petty
pedlar of the Campo, till he managed to get enough
goods on credit from Anzani to open a little store in the
wilds, and got himself elected by the drunken mozos
that hang about the Estancias and the poorest sort of
rancheros who were in his debt. And Gamacho, who
to-morrow will be probably one of our high oflScials, is a
stranger, too — an Isleiio. He might have been a
Cargador on the O. S. N. wharf had he not (the posadero
of Rincon is ready to swear it) murdered a pedlar in the
woods and stolen his pack to begin life on. And do you
think that Gamacho, then, would have ever become a
hero with the democracy of this place, like our Capataz?
Of course not. He isn't half the man. No; decidedly, I
I think that Nostromo is a fool."

The doctor's talk was distasteful to the builder of
railways. " It is impossible to argue that point," he said,
philosophically. " Each man has his gifts. You should
have heard Gamacho haranguing his friends in the street.
He has a howling voice, and he shouted like mad, lifting
his clenched fist right above his head, and throwing his
body half out of the window. At every pause the
rabble below yelled, 'Down with the Oligarchs! Viva

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322 NOSTHOMO

la Libertad!' Fuentes inside looked extremely miser-
able. You know, he is the brother of Jorge Fuentes,
who has been Minister of the Interior for six months or
so, some few years back. Of course, he has no con-
science; but he is a man of birth and education — at one
time the director of the Customs of Cayta. That
idiot-brute Gamacho fastened himself upon him with
his following of the lowest rabble. His sickly fear of
that ruflSan was the most rejoicing sight imaginable."

He got up and went to the door to look out towards
the harbour. "All quiet," he said; "I wonder if Sotillo
really means to turn up here?'*

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^ CHAPTER TWO

Captain Mitchell, pacing the wharf, was asking
himself the same question. There was always the doubt
whether the warning of the Esmeralda telegraphist —
a fragmentary and interrupted message — had been
properly imderstood. However, the good man had
made up his mind not to go to bed till daylight, if even
then. He imagined himself to have rendered an enor-
mous service to Charles Gould. When he thought of
the saved silver he rubbed his hands together with
satisfaction. In his simple way he was proud at being
a party to this extremely clever expedient. It was he
who had given it a practical shape by suggesting the
possibility of intercepting at sea the north-bound
steamer. And it was advantageous to his Company,
too, which would have lost a valuable freight if the
treasure had been left ashore to be confiscated. The
pleasure of disappointing the Monterists was also very
great. Authoritative by temperament and the long j^
habit of command, Captain Mitchell was no democrat.
He even went so far as to profess a contempt for
parliamentarism itself. "His Excellency Don Vincente
Ribiera," he used to say, "whom I and that fellow of
mine, Nostromo, had the honour, sir, and the pleasure
of saving from a cruel death, deferred too much to his
Congress. It was a mistake — a distinct mistake, sir."

The guileless old seaman superintending the O.S.N.
service imagined that the last three days had exhausted
every startling surprise the political life of Costaguana
could oflFer. He used to confess afterwards tbsit the

323

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S24 NOSTROMO

events which followed surpassed his imagination. To
<\ , begin with, Sulaco (because of the seizure of the cables
and the disorganization of the steam service) remained
for a whole fortnight cut oflF from the rest of the world
like a besieged city.

"One would not have believed it possible; but so it
was, sir. A full fortnight."

The account of the extraordinary things that hap-
pened during that time, and the powerful emotions he
experienced, acquired a comic impressiveness from the
pompous manner of his personal narrative. He opened
it always by assuring his hearer that he was "in the
thick of things from first to last." Then he would be-
gin by describing the getting away of the silver, and his
natural anxiety lest "his fellow" in charge of the lighter
should make some mistake. Apart from the loss of
so much precious metal, the life of Senor Martin De-
coud, an agreeable, wealthy, and well-informed young
gentleman, would have been jeopardized through his
falling into the hands of his political enemies. Cap-
tain Mitchell also admitted that in his solitary vigil on
the wharf he had felt a certain measure of concern for
the future of the whole country.

"A feeling, sir," he explained, "perfectly com-
prehensible in a man properly grateful for the many
kindnesses received from the best families of merchants
and other native gentlemen of independent means, who,
barely saved by us from the excesses of the mob, seemed,
to my mind's eye, destined to become the prey in person
and fortune of the native soldiery, which, as is well
known, behave with regrettable barbarity to the in-
habitants during their civil commotions. And then,
sir, there were the Goulds, for both of whom, man and
wife, I could not but entertain the warmest feeUngs
deserved by their hospitality and kindness. I felt, tpOt

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 326

the dangers of the gentlemen of the Amarilla Club, who i
had made me honorary member, and had treated me I
with uniform regard and civility, both in my capacity j
of Consular Agent and as Superintendent of an im-
portant Steam Service. Miss Antonia Avellanos,
the most beautiful and accomplished young lady whom
it had ever been my privilege to speak to, was not a
little in my mind, I confess. How the interests of my
Company would be aflFected by the impending change
of officials claimed a large share of my attention, too.
In short, sir, I was extremely anxious and very tired, as
you may suppose, by the exciting and memorable events
in which I had taken my little part. The Company's
building containing my residence was within five
minutes' walk, with the attraction of some supper and of
my hammock (I always talje my nightly rest in a ham-
mock, as the most suitable to the climate); but some-
how, sir, though evidently I could do nothing for any
one by remaining about, I could not tear myself away
from that wharf, where the fatigue made me stumble
painfully at times. The night was excessively dark —
the darkest I remember in my life; so that I began to
think that the arrival of the transport from Esmeralda
could not possibly take place before daylight, owing
to the difficulty of navigating the gulf. The mosquitoes
bit like fury. We have been infested here with mos- .
quitoes before the late improvements; a peculiar har-f
hour brand, sir, renowned for its ferocity. They were
like a cloud about my head, and I shouldn't wonder
that but for their attacks I would have dozed oflF as I
walked up and down, and got a heavy fall. I kept on
smoking cigar after cigar, more to protect myself from
being eaten up alive than from any real relish for the
weed. Then, sir, when perhaps for the twentieth time
I was approaching my watch to the lighted end in order

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326 NOSTROMO

to see the time, and observing with surprise that it
wanted yet ten minutes to midnight, I heard the splash
of a ship's propeller — an unmistakable sound to a
sailor's ear on such a calm night. It was faint indeed,
because they were advancing with precaution and dead
slow, both on account of the darkness and from their
desire of not revealing too soon their presence: a very
unnecessary care, because, I verily believe, in all the
enormous extent of this harbour I was the only living
soul about. Even the usual staflF of watchmen and
others had been absent from their posts for several
nights owing to the disturbances. I stood stock still,
after dropping and stamping out my cigar — a circum-
stance highly agreeable, I should think, to the mosqui-
toes, if I may judge from the state of my face next morn-
ing. But that was a trifling inconvenience in com-
parison with the brutal proceedings I became victim of
on the part of Sotillo. Something utterly inconceiv-
able, sir; more like the proceedings of a maniac than the
action of a sane man, however lost to all sense of honour
and decency. But Sotillo was furious at the failure of
his thievish scheme."

In this Captain Mitchell was right. Sotillo was in-
deed infuriated. Captain Mitchell, however, had not
been arrested at once; a vivid curiosity induced him to
remain on the wharf (which is nearly four hundred feet
long) to see, or rather hear, the whole process of dis-
embarkation. Concealed by the railway truck used
for the silver, which had been run back afterwards to
the shore end of the jetty. Captain Mitchell saw the
small detachment thrown forward, pass by, taking
difiFerent directions upon the plain. Meantime, the
troops were being landed and formed into a column,
whose head crept up gradually so close to him that he
made it out, barring nearly the whole width of the

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 387

wharf, only a very few yards from him. Then the low,
shuffling, murmuring, clinking soimds ceased, and the
whole mass remained for about an hour motionless and
silent, awaiting the retiun of the scouts. On land
nothing was to be heard except the deep baying of the
mastiffs at the railway yards, answered by the faint
barking of the curs infesting the outer limits of the
town. A detached knot of dark shapes stood in front of
the head of the column.

Presently the picket at the end of the wharf began to
challenge in imdertones single figures approaching from
the plain. Those messengers sent back from the scout-
ing parties flimg to their comrades brief sentences and
passed on rapidly, becoming lost in the great motionless
mass, to make their report to the StaflF. It occurred to
Captain Mitchell that his position could become dis-
agreeable and perhaps dangerous, when suddenly, at
the head of the jetty, there was a shout of command, a
bugle call, followed by a stir and a rattling of arms, and a
murmuring noise that ran right up the column. Near
by a loud voice directed hurriedly, "Push that railway
car out of the way!" At the rush of bare feet to exe-
cute the order Captain Mitchell skipped back a pace or
two; the car, suddenly impelled by many hands, flew
away from him along the rails, and before he knew what
had happened he found himself surrounded and seized
by his arms and the collar of his coat.

"We have caught a man hiding here, mi tenientel'^
cried one of his captors.

"Hold him on one side till the rearguard comes
along," answered the voice. The whole column
streamed past Captain Mitchell at a run, the thunder-
ing noise of their feet dying away suddenly on the shore.
His captors held him tightly, disregarding his declara-
tion that he was an Englishman and his loud demands to

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828 NOSTROMO

be taken at once before their commanding oflBcer.
Finally he lapsed into dignified silence. With a hollow
rumble of wheels on the planks a couple of field guns,
dragged by hand, rolled by. Then, after a small body
of men had marched past escorting four or five figures
which walked in advance, with a jingle of steel scab-
bards, he felt a tug at his arms, and was ordered to come
along. During the passage from the wharf to the
Custom House it is to be feared that Captain Mitchell
was subjected to certain indignities at the hands of the
soldiers — such as jerks, thumps on the neck, forcible
application of the butt of a rifle to the small of his back.
Their ideas of speed were not in accord with his notion
of his dignity. He became flustered, flushed, and help-
less. It was as if the world were coming to an end.

The long building was surrounded by troops, which
were already piling arms by companies and preparing
to pass the night lying on the ground in their ponchos
with their sacks imder their heads. Corporals moved
with swinging lanterns posting sentries all round the
walls wherever there was a door or an opening. Sotillo
was taking his measures to protect his conquest as if
it had indeed contained the treasure. His desire to
make his fortune at one audacious stroke of genius had
overmastered his reasoning faculties. He would not
believe in the possibility of failure; the mere hint of
such a thing made his brain reel with rage. Every
circumstance pointing to it appeared incredible. The
statement of Hirsch, which was so absolutely fatal to his
hopes, could by no means be admitted. It is true, too,
that Hirsch's story had been told so incoherently, with
such excessive signs of distraction, that it really looked
improbable. It was extremely difficult, as the saying
is, to make head or tail of it. On the bridge of the
steamer, directly after his rescue, Sotillo and his officers,

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 329

in their impatience and excitement, would not give
the wretched man time to collect such few wits as re-
mained to him. He ought to have been quieted,
soothed, and reassured, whereas he had been roughly
handled, cuflFed, shaken, and addressed in menacing
tones. His struggles, his wriggles, his attempts to get
down on his knees, followed by the most violent efforts
to break away, as if he meant incontinently to jump
overboard, his shrieks and shrinkings and cowering
wild glances had filled them first with amazement, then
with a doubt of his genuineness, as men are wont to sus-
j>ect the sincerity of every great passion. His Spanish,
too, became so mixed up with German that the better
half of his statements remained incomprehensible. He
tried to propitiate them by calling them hochwohlge-
boren herren^ which in itself sounded suspicious. When
admonished sternly not to trifle he repeated his en-
treaties and protestations of loyalty and innocence again
in German, obstinately, because he was not aware in
what language he was speaking. His identity, of
course, was i>erfectly known as an inhabitant of Es-
meralda, but this made the matter no clearer. As he
kept on forgetting Decoud's name, mixing him up with
several other people he had seen in the Casa Gould, it
looked as if they all had been in the lighter together;
and for a moment Sotillo thought that he had drowned
every prominent Ribierist of Sulaco. The improb-
ability of such a thing threw a doubt upon the whole
statement. Hirsch was either mad or playing a part —
pretending fear and distraction on the spur of the mo-
ment to cover the truth. Sotillo's rapacity, excited to
the highest pitch by the prospect of an immense booty,
could believe in nothing adverse. This Jew might have
been very much frightened by the accident, but he
knew where the silver was concealed, and had invented

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330 NOSTROMO

this story, with his Jewish cunning, to put him entirely
oflF the track as to what had been done.

Sotillo had taken up his quarters on the upper floor
in a vast apartment with heavy black beams. But
there was no ceiling, and the eye lost itself in the dark-
ness imder the high pitch of the roof. The thick shut-
ters stood open. On a long table could be seen a large
inkstand, some stumpy, inky quill pens, and two
square wooden boxes, each holding half a hundred-
weight of sand. Sheets of grey coarse oflScial paper
bestrewed the floor. It must have been a room oc-
cupied by some higher oflScial of the Customs, because
a large leathern armchair stood behind the table,
with other high-backed chairs scattered about. A net
hammock was swung under one of the beams — for the
oflBciaFs afternoon siesta, no doubt. A couple of
candles stuck into tall iron candlesticks gave a dim
reddish light. The colonel's hat, sword, and revolver
lay between them, and a couple of his more trusty
oflBcers lounged gloomily against the table. The
colonel threw himself into the armchair, and a big
negro with a sergeant's stripes on his ragged sleeve,
kneeling down, pulled oflF his boots. Sotillo's ebony
moustache contrasted violently with the livid colouring
of his cheeks. His eyes were sombre and as if sunk very
far into his head. He seemed exhausted by his per-
plexities, languid with disappointment; but when the
sentry on the landing thrust his head in to announce the
arrival of a prisoner, he revived at once.

"Let him be brought in," he shouted, fiercely.

The door flew open, and Captain Mitchell, bare-
headed, his waistcoat open, the bow of his tie under his
ear, was hustled into the room.

Sotillo recognized him at once. He could not have
hoped for a more precious capture; here was a man who

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 331

could tell him, if he chose, everything he wished to
know — and directly the problem of how best to make
him talk to the point presented itself to his mind. The
resentment of a foreign nation had no terrors for Sotillo.
The might of the whole armed Em'ope would not have
protected Captain Mitchell from insults and ill-usage, so
well as the quick reflection of Sotillo that this was an
Englishman who would most likely tiun obstinate under
bad treatment, and become quite immanageable. At
all events, the colonel smoothed the scowl on his brow.

"What! The excellent Senor Mitchell!" he cried,
in affected dismay. The pretended anger of his swift
advance and of his shout, "Release the caballero at
once," was so effective that the astounded soldiers
positively sprang away from their prisoner. Thus
suddenly deprived of forcible support. Captain Mit-
chell reeled as though about to fall. Sotillo took him
familiarly under the arm, led him to a chair, waved his
hand at the room. "Go out, all of you," he com-
manded.

When they had been left alone he stood looking down,
irresolute and silent, watching till Captain Mitchell
had recovered his power of speech.

Here in his very grasp was one of the men concerned
in the removal of the silver. Sotillo's temperament was
of that sort that he experienced an ardent desire to beat
him; just as formerly when negotiating with difficulty
a loan from the cautious Anzani, his fingers always
itched to take the shopkeeper by the throat. As to
Captain Mitchell, the suddenness, imexpectedness, and
general inconceivableness of this experience had con-
fused his thoughts. Moreover, he was physically out
of breath.

"I've been knocked down three times between this
and the wharf," he gasped out at last. "Somebody

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332 NOSTROMO

shall be made to pay for this." He had certainly
stumbled more than once, and had been dragged along
for some distance before he could regain his stride.
With his recovered breath his indignation seemed to
madden him. He jumped up, crimson, all his white
hair bristling, his eyes glaring vengefully, and shook
violently the flaps of his ruined waistcoat before the
disconcerted Sotillo. " Look ! Those uniformed thieves
of yom-s downstairs have robbed me of my watch."

The old sailor's aspect was very threatening. Sotillo
saw himself cut off from the table on which his sabre and
revolver were lying.

"I demand restitution and apologies," Mitchell
thimdered at him, quite beside himself. "From you!
Yes, from you!"

For the space of a second or so the colonel stood with
a perfectly stony expression of face; then, as Captain
Mitchell flimg out an arm towards the table as if to
snatch up the revolver, Sotillo, with a yell of alarm,
bounded to the door and was gone in a flash, slamming
it after him. Smprise calmed Captain Mitchell's fury.
Behind the closed door Sotillo shouted on the landing,
and there was a great tumult of feet on the wooden
staircase.

"Disarm him! Bind him!" the colonel could be
heard vociferating.

Captain Mitchell had just the time to glance once
at the windows, with three perpendicular bars of iron
each and some twenty feet from the ground, as he well
knew, before the door flew open and the rush upon him
took place. In an incredibly short time he found him-
self bound with many turns of a hide rope to a high-
backed chair, so that his head alone remained free. Not
till then did Sotillo, who had been leaning in the door-
way trembling visibly, venture again within. Tb<^ .

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 333

soldiers, picking up from the floor the rifles they had
dropped to grapple with the prisoner, filed out of the
room. The oflBeers remained leaning on their swords
and looking on.

"The watch! the watch!" raved the colonel, pacing
to and fro like a tiger in a cage. "Give me that man's
watch."

It was true, that when searched for arms in the hall
downstairs, before being taken into Sotillo's presence.
Captain Mitchell had been relieved of his watch and
chain; but at the colonel's clamour it was produced
quickly enough, a corporal bringing it up, carried care-
fully in the palms of his joined hands. Sotillo snatched
it, and pushed the clenched fist from which it dangled
close to Captain Mitchell's face.

"Now then! You arrogant Englishman! You dare
to call the soldiers of the army thieves! Behold your
watch."

He flourished his fist as if aiming blows at the priso-
ner's nose. Captain Mitchell, helpless as a swathed
infant, looked anxiously at the sixty-guinea gold half-
chronometer, presented to him years ago by a Com-
mittee of Underwriters for saving a ship from total loss
by fire. Sotillo, too, seemed to perceive its valuable
appearance. He became silent suddenly, stepped aside
to the table, and began a careful examination in the
light of the candles. He had never seen anything so
fine. His officers closed in and craned their necks be-
hind his back.

He became so interested that for an instant he forgot
his precious prisoner. There is always something
childish in the rapacity of the passionate, clear-minded.
Southern races, wanting in the misty idealism of the
Northerners, who at the smallest encouragement dream
of nothing less than the conquest of the earth. Sotillo

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834 NOSTROMO

was fond of jewels, gold trinkets, of personal adornment.
After a moment he tinned about, and with a command-
ing gesture made all his officers fall back. He laid
down the watch on the table, then, negligently, pushed
his hat over it.

"Ha!'* he began, going up very close to the chair.
"You dare call my valiant soldiers of the Esmeralda
regiment, thieves. You dare! What impudence! You
foreigners come here to rob our country of its wealth.
You never have enough! Yom* audacity knows no
boimds.*'

He looked towards the officers, amongst whom there
was an approving murmiu". The older major was
moved to declare —

"Si, mi colonel. They are all traitors.*'

"I shall say nothing," continued Sotillo, fixing the
motionless and powerless Mitchell with an angry but
uneasy stare. "I shall say nothing of your treacherous
attempt to get possession of my revolver to shoot
me while I was trying to treat you with considera-
tion you did not deserve. You have forfeited your
life. Your only hope is in my clemency."

He watched for the eflFect of his words, but there was
no obvious sign of fear on Captain MitchelFs face. His
white hair was full of dust, which covered also the rest
of his helpless person. As if he had heard nothing, he
twitched an eyebrow to get rid of a bit of straw which
hung amongst the hairs.

Sotillo advanced one leg and put his arms akimbo«
"It is you, Mitchell," he said, emphatically, "who are
the thief, not my soldiers!" He pointed at his prisoner
a forefinger with a long, almond-shaped nail. "Where
is the silver of the San Tome mine? I ask you, Mitchell,
where is the silver that was deposited in this Custom
House? Answer me that! You stole it. You were a

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 335

party to stealing it. It was stolen from the Government.
Aha! you think I do not know what I say; but I am up
to your foreign tricks. It is gone, the silver! No?
Gone in one of your lanchas, you miserable man! How
dared you?"

This time he produced his effect. "How on earth
could Sotillo know that? " thought Mitchell. His head,
the only part of his body that could move, betrayed his
surprise by a sudden jerk.

"Ha! you tremble,'* Sotillo shouted, suddenly. "It
is a conspiracy. It is a crime against the State. Did
you not know that the silver belongs to the Republic till
the Government claims are satisfied? Where is it?
Where have you hidden it, you miserable thief?"

At this question Captain Mitchell's sinking spirits re-
vived. In whatever incomprehensible manner Sotillo
had already got his information about the lighter, he had
not captured it. That was clear. In his outraged
heart. Captain Mitchell had resolved that nothing
would induce him to say a word while he remained so
disgracefully bound, but his desire to help the escape of
the silver made him depart from this resolution. His
wits were very much at work. He detected in Sotillo a
certain air of doubt, of irresolution.

"That man," he said to himself, "is not certain of
what he advances." For all his pomposity in social
intercourse. Captain Mitchell could meet the realities of
life in a resolute and ready spirit. Now he had got over
the first shock of the abominable treatment he was cool
and collected enough. The immense contempt he felt
for Sotillo steadied him, and he said oracularly, "*No
doubt it is well concealed by this time."

Sotillo, too, had time to cool down. '^Muy hieri,
Mitchell," he said in a cold and threatening manner.
**But can you produce the Government receipt for the

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336 NOSTROMO

royalty and the Custom House permit of embarkation,
hey? Can you? No. Then the silver has been re-
moved illegally, and the guilty shall be made to suflFer,
imless it is produced within five days from this." He
gave orders for the prisoner to be unboimd and locked
up in one of the smaller rooms downstairs. He walked
about the room, moody and silent, till Captain Mitchell,,
with each of his arms held by a couple of men, stood up,
shook himself, and stamped his feet.

"How did you like to be tied up, Mitchell? " he asked,
derisively.

"It is the most incredible, abominable use of power!"
Captain Mitchell declared in a loud voice. "And
whatever your purpose, you shall gain nothing from it,
I can promise you."

The tall colonel, livid, with his coal-black ringlets and
moustache, crouched, as it were, to look into the eyes of
the short, thick-set, red-faced prisoner with rumpled
white hair.

"That we shall see. You shall know my power a
little better when I tie you up to a potalon outside in the
sun for a whole day." He drew himself up haughtily,
and made a sign for Captain Mitchell to be led away.

"What about my watch?" cried Captain Mitchell,
hanging back from the efforts of the men pulling him
towards the door.

Sotillo turned to his officers. "No! But only listen
to this picaro, caballeros," he pronounced with affected
scorn, and was answered by a chorus of derisive laugh-
ter. "He demands his watch!" . . ,. He ran up
again to Captain Mitchell, for the desire to rdieve his
feelings by inflicting blows and pain upon this English-
man was very strong within him. "Your watch! You
are a prisoner in war time, Mitchell! In war time!
You have no rights and no property! Caramba! The

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 337

very breath in your body belongs to me. Remember
that."

"Bosh!" said Captain Mitchell, concealing a dis-
agreeable impression.

Down below, in a great hall, with the earthen floor
and with a tall mound thrown up by white ants in a
comer, the soldiers had kindled a small fire with broken
chairs and tables near the arched gateway, through
which the faint murmur of the harbour waters on the
beach could be heard. While Captain Mitchell was
being led down the staircase, an oflScer passed him,
nmning up to report to Sotillo the capture of more
prisoners. A lot of smoke hung about in the vast
gloomy place, the fire crackled, and, as if through a
haze. Captain Mitchell made out, surrounded by short
soldiers with fixed bayonets, the heads of three tall
prisoners — ^the doctor, the engineer-in-chief, and the
white leonine mane of old Viola, who stood half -turned
away from the others with his chin on his breast and his
arms crossed. Mitchell's astonishment knew no
bounds. He cried out; the other two exclaimed also.
But he hurried on, diagonally, across the big cavern-
like hall. Lots of thoughts, surmises, hints of caution,
and so on, crowded his head to distraction.

"Is he actually keeping you?" shouted the chief
engineer, whose single eyeglass glittered in the firelight.

An oflScer from the top of the stairs was shouting
urgently, "Bring them all up — all three."

In the clamour of voices and the rattle of arms. Cap-
tain Mitchell made himself heard imperfectly: "By
heavens! the fellow has stolen my watch."

The engineer-in-chief on the staircase resisted the
pressure long enough to shout, "What? What did you
say?"

"My chronometer!" Captain Mitchell yelled, vio-

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3S8 NOSTROMO

lently at the very moment of being thrust head fore-
most through a small door into a sort of cell, perfectly
black, and so narrow that he fetched up against the
opposite wall. The door had been instantly slammed.
He knew where they had put him. This was the strong
room of the Custom House, whence the silver had been
removed only a few hours earlier. It was almost as
narrow as a corridor, with a small square aperture,
barred by a heavy grating, at the distant end. Captain
Mitchell staggered for a few steps, then sat down on the
earthen floor with his back to the wall. Nothing, not
even a gleam of light from anywhere, interfered with
Captain Mitchell's meditation. He did some hard
but not very extensive thinking. It was not of a
gloomy cast. The old sailor, with all his small weak-
nesses and absurdities, was constitutionally incapable
Iof entertaining for any length of time a fear of his per-
i^onal safety. It was not so much fimmess of sold as the
lack of a certain kind of imagination — ^the kind whose
undue development caused intense sufiFering to Sefior
Hirsch; that sort of imagination which adds the blind
terror of bodily sufiFering and of death, envisaged as an
accident to the body alone, strictly — ^to all the other
apprehensions on which the sense of one's existence is
based. Unfortunately, Captain Mitchell had not much
penetration of any kind; characteristic, illuminating
trifles of expression, action, or movement, escaped him
completely. He was too pompously and innocently
aware of his own existence to observe that of others.
For instance, he could not believe that Sotillo had been
really afraid of him, and this simply because it woidd
never have entered into his head to shoot any one
except in the most pressing case of self-defence. Any-
body could see he was not a murdering kind of man, he
reflected quite gravely. Then why this preposterous

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 3S9

and insulting charge? he asked himself. But his
thoughts mainly clung around the astounding and un-
answerable question: How the devil the fellow got to
know that the silver had gone oflF in the lighter? It was
obvious that he had not captured it. And, obviously,
he could not have captured it! In this last conclusion
Captain Mitchell was misled by the assumption drawn
from his observation of the weather during his long
vigil on the wharf. He thought that there had been
much more wind than usual that night in the gulf;
whereas, as a matter of fact, the reverse was the case.

"How in the name of all that's marvellous did that
confounded fellow get wind of the affair? " was the first
question he asked directly after the bang, clatter, and
flash of the open door (which was closed again almost
before he could lift his dropped head) informed him that
he had a companion of captivity. Dr. Monygham's
voice stopped muttering curses in English and Spanish.

" Is that you, Mitchell? " he made answer, surlily. " I
struck my forehead against this confounded wall with
enough force to fell an ox. Where are you?"

Captain Mitchell, accustomed to the darkness, could
make out the doctor stretching out his hands blindly.

"I am sitting here on the floor. Don't fall over my
legs," Captain Mitchell's voice announced with great
dignity of tone. The doctor, entreated not to walk
about in the dark, sank down to the ground, too. The
two prisoners of Sotillo, with their heads nearly touch-
ing, began to exchange confidences.

"Yes," the doctor related in a low tone to Captain
Mitchell's vehement curiosity, "we have been nabbed
in old Viola's place. It seems that one of their pickets,
commanded by an oflBcer, pushed as far as the town
gate. They had orders not to enter, but to bring along
every sold they could find on the plain. We had been

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340 NOSTROMO

talking in there with the door open, and no doubt they
saw the glimmer of our light. They must have been
making their approaches for some time. The engineer
laid himself on a bench in a recess by the fire-place, and
I went upstairs to have a look. I hadn't heard any
sound from there for a long time. Old Viola, as soon as
he saw me come up, lifted his arm for silence. I stole in
on tiptoe. By Jove, his wife was lying down and had
gone to sleep. The woman had actually dropped off to
sleep! *Senor Doctor,' Viola whispers to me, *it looks
as if her oppression was going to get better.' *Yes,' I
said, very much surprised; 'your wife is a wonderful
woman, Giorgio.' Just then a shot was fired in the
kitchen, which made us jump and cower as if at a thun-
der-clap. It seems that the party of soldiers had
stolen quite close up, and one of them had crept up to
the door. He looked in, thought there was no one there,
and, holding his rifle ready, entered quietly. The chief
told me that he had just closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, he saw the man already in the
middle of the room peering into the dark corners. The
chief was so startled that, without thinking, he made
one leap from the recess right out in front of the fire-
place. The soldier, no less startled, up with his rifle
and pulls the trigger, deafening and singeing the engi-
neer, but in his flurry missing him completely. But,
look what happens! At the noise of the report the
sleeping woman sat up, as if moved by a spring, with a
shriek, *The children, Gian' Battista! Save the chil-
dren!' I have it in my ears now. It was the truest cry
of distress I ever heard. I stood as if paralyzed, but
the old husband ran across to the bedside, stretching out
his hands. She clung to them! I could see her eyes
go glazed; the old fellow lowered her down on the pil-
lows and then looked round at me. She was dead!

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All this took less than five minutes, and then I ran down
to see what was the matter. It was no use thinking of
any resistance. Nothing we two could say availed with
the oflScer, so I volunteered to go up with a couple of
soldiers and fetch down old Viola. He was sitting at
the foot of the bed, looking at his wife's face, and did not
seem to hear what I said; but after I had pulled the
sheet over her head, he got up and followed us down-
stairs quietly, in a sort of thoughtful way. They
marched us oflF along the road, leaving the door open
and the candle burning. The chief engineer strode on
without a word, but I looked back once or twice at *^e
feeble gleam. After we had gone some considerable
distance, the Garibaldino, who was walking by my side,
suddenly said, *I have buried many men on battlefields
on this continent. The priests talk of consecrated
ground! Bah! All the earth made by God is holy;
but the sea, which knows nothing of kings and priests
and tyrants, is the holiest of all. Doctor ! I should like
to bury her in the sea. No mummeries, candles, in-
cense, no holy water mumbled over by priests. The
spirit of liberty is upon the waters.' . . . Amaz-
ing old man. He was saying all this in an undertone
as if talking to himself."

"Yes, yes," interrupted Captain Mitchell, impa-
tiently. "Poor old chap! But have you any idea how
that ruflSan Sotillo obtained his information? He did not
get hold of any of our Cargadores who helped with the
truck, did he? But no, it is impossible! These were
picked men we've had in our boats for these five years,
and I paid them myself specially for the job, with in-
structions to keep out of the way for twenty-four hours at
least. I saw them with my own eyes march on with the
Italians to the railway yards. The chief promised to give
them rations as long as they wanted to remain there,"

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842 NOSTROMO

"Well," said the doctor, slowly, "lean tell you that
you may say good-bye for ever to yoiu* best lighter, and
to the Capataz of Cargadores."

At this. Captain Mitchell scrambled up to his feet in
the excess of his excitement. The doctor, without giv-
ing him time to exclaim, stated briefly the part played
by Hirsch during the night.

Captain Mitchell was overcome. "Drowned!" he
muttered, in a bewildered and appalled whisper.
"Drowned!" Afterwards he kept still, apparently
listening, but too absorbed in the news of the catas-
trophe to follow the doctor's narrative with attention.

The doctor had taken up an attitude of perfect
ignorance, till at last Sotillo was induced to have
Hirsch brought in to repeat the whole story, which was
got out of him again with the greatest diflSculty, be-
cause every moment he would break out into lamenta-
tions. At last, Hirsch was led away, looking more dead
than alive, and shut up in one of the upstairs rooms to
be close at hand. Then the doctor, keeping up his
character of a man not admitted to the inner councils of
the San Tome Administration, remarked that the story
sounded incredible. Of course, he said, he couldn't
tell what had been the action of the Europeans, as he
had been exclusively occupied with his own work in
looking after the wounded, and also in attending Don
Jose Avellanos. He had succeeded in assuming so well
a tone of impartial indifference, that Sotillo seemed
to be completely deceived. Till then a show of regular
inquiry had been kept up; one of the oflBcers sitting at
the table wrote down the questions and the answers, the
others, lounging about the room, listened attentively,
puflfing at their long cigars and keeping their eyes on the
doctor. But at that point Sotillo ordered everybody
out.

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CHAPTER THREE

Directly they were alone, the coloneFs severe oflScial
manner changed. He rose and approached the doctor.
His eyes shone with rapacity and hope; he became con-
fidential. "The silver might have been indeed put on
board the lighter, but it was not conceivable that it
should have been taken out to sea." The doctor,
watching every word, nodded slightly, smoking with
apparent relish the cigar which Sotillo had offered him
as a sign of his friendly intentions. The doctor's
manner of cold detachment from the rest of the Euro-
peans led Sotillo on, till, from conjecture to conjecture,
he arrived at hinting that in his opinion this was a put-
up job on the part of Charles Gould, in order to get hold
of that immense treasure all to himself. The doctor,
observant and self-pK)ssessed, muttered, "He is very
capable of that."

Here Captain Mitchell exclaimed with amazement,
amusement, and indignation, "You said that of Charles
Goidd!" Disgust, and even some suspicion, crept into
his tone, for to him, too, as to other Europeans, there ap-
peared to be something dubious about the doctor's
personaUty.

"What on earth made you say that to this watch-
stealing scoundrel?" he asked. "What's the object of
an infernal lie of that sort? That confounded pick-
pocket was quite capable of believing you."

He snorted. For a time the doctor remained silent
in the dark. ,

"Yes, that is exactly what I did say," he uttered at

343

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344 NOSTROMO

last, in a tone which would have made it clear enough
to a third party that the pause was not of a reluctant but
of a reflective character. Captain Mitchell thought
that he had never heard anything so brazenly impudent
in his life.

"Well, well!" he muttered to himself, but he had not
the heart to voice his thoughts. They were swept
away by others full of astonishment and regret. A
heavy sense of discomfiture crushed him: the loss of the
silver, the death of Nostromo, which was really quite a
blow to his sensibilities, because he had become attached
to his Capataz as people get attached to their inferiors
from love of ease and almost unconscious gratitude.
And when he thought of Decoud being drowned, too, his
sensibility was almost overcome by this miserable end.
What a heavy blow for that poor young woman! Cap-
tain Mitchell did not belong to the species of crabbed
old bachelors; on the contrary, he liked to see young
men paying attentions to yoimg women. It seemed to
him a natural and proper thing. Proper especially.
As to sailors, it was diflFerent; it was not their place to
marry, he maintained, but it was on moral groimds as a
matter of self-denial, for, he explained, life on board
ship is not fit for a woman even at best, and if you leave
her on shore, first of all it is not fair, and next she either
suffers from it or doesn't care a bit, which, in both cases,
is bad. He couldn't have told what upset him most —
Charles Gould's immense material loss, the death of
Nostromo, which was a heavy loss to himself, or the
idea of that beautiful and accomplished young woman
being plunged into mourning.

"Yes," the doctor, who had been apparently reflect-
ing, began again, "he believed me right enough.
I thought he would have hugged me. *Si, si,' he
said, *he will write to that partner of his, the rich

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Americano in San Francisco, that it is all lost. Why
not? There is enough to share with many people.'"

"But this is perfectly imbecile!" cried Captain
Mitchell.

The doctor remarked that Sotillo was imbecile, and
that his imbecility was ingenious enough to lead him com-
pletely astray. He had helped him only but a little way.

"I mentioned," the doctor said, "in a sort of casual
way, that tr^sure is generally buried in the earth
rather than set afloat upon the sea. At this my So-
tillo slapped his forehead. ^Pof DioSy yes,' he said;
*they must have buried it on the shores of this harbour
somewhere before they sailed out.' "

"Heavens and earth!" muttered Captain Mitchell,
" I should not have believed that anybody could be ass

enough " He paused, then went on mournfully:

"But what's the good of all this? It would have been
a clever enough lie if the lighter had been still afloat. It
would have kept that inconceivable idiot perhaps from
sending out the steamer to cruise in the gulf. That was
the danger that worried me no end." Captain Mitchell
sighed profoundly.

"I had an object," the doctor pronounced, slowly.

"Had you?" muttered Captain Mitchell. "Well,
that's lucky, or else I would have thought that you
went on fooling him for the fun of the thing. And per-
haps that was your object. Well, I must say I per-
sonally wouldn't condescend to that sort of thing. It is
not to my taste. No, no. Blackening a friend's
character is not my idea of fun, if it were to fool the
greatest blackguard on earth."

Had it not been for Captain Mitchell's depression,
caused by the fatal news, his disgust of Dr. Monygham
would have taken a more outspoken shape; but he
thought to himself that now it really did not matter

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346 NOSTROMO

what that man, whom he had never liked, would say
and do.

"I wonder," he grumbled, "why they have shut us
up together, or why Sotillo should have shut you up at
all, since it seems to me you have been fairly chummy up
there?"

"Yes, I wonder," said the doctor grimly.

Captain Mitchell's heart was so heavy that he would
have preferred for the time being a complete solitude to
the best of company. But any company would have
been preferable to the doctor's, at whom he had always
looked askance as a sort of beachcomber of superior
intelligence partly reclaimed from his abased state.
That feeling led him to ask —

"What has that ruflSan done with the other two?"

" The chief engineer he would have 1^ go in any case,"
said the doctor. "He wouldn't like to have a quarrel
with the railway upon his hands. Not just yet, at any
rate. I don't think. Captain Mitchell, that you under-
stand exactly what SotiUo's position is "

"I don't see why I should bother my head about it,"
snarled Captain Mitchell.

"No," assented the doctor, with the same grim com-
posure. "I don't see why you should. It wouldn't
help a single human being in the world if you thought
ever so hard upon any subject whatever."

"No," said Captain Mitchell, simply, and w'Kh
evident depression. "A man locked up in a confounded
dark hole is not much use to anybody."

"As to old Viola," the doctor continued, as though
he had not heard, "Sotillo released him for the same
reason he is presently going to release you."

"Eh? What?" exclaimed Captain Mitchell, staring
like an owl in the darkness. " Wliat is there in common
between me and old Viola? More likely because the

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 347

old chap has no watch and chain for the pickpocket to
steal. And I tell you what, Dr. Monygham," he went
on with rising choler, "he will find it more diflBcult than
he thinks to get rid of me. He will bum his fingers over
that job yet, I can tell you. To begin with, I won't go
without my watch, and as to the rest — we shall see. I
dare say it is no great matter for you to be locked up.
But Joe Mitchell is a different kind of man, sir. I
don't mfean to submit tamely to insult and robbery. I
am a pubUc character, sir."

And then Captain Mitchell became aware that the
bars of the opening had become visible, a black grating
upon a square of grey. The coming of the day silenced
Captain Mitchell a^ if by the reflectidn that now in all
the future days 1^ Woidd be deprived of the invaluable
services of his XJapataz. He leaned against the wall
with his arms^folded on his breast, and the doctor
walked up attd down the whole length of the place
with his peculiar hobbling gait, as if slinking about on
damaged feet. At the end furthest from the grating he
would be lost altogether in the darkness. Only the
slight limping shuffle could be heard. There was an air
of moody detachment in that painful prowl kept up
without a pause. When the door of the prison was
suddenly flung open and his name shouted out he
showed no surprise. He swerved sharply in his walk,
and passed out at once, as though much depended upon
his speed; but Captain Mitchell remained for some
time with his shoulders against the wall, quite undecided
in the bitterness of his spirit whether it wouldn't be
better to refuse to stir a limb in the way of protest. He
had half a mind to get himself carried out, but after the
officer at the door had shouted three or four times in
tones of remonstrance and surprise he condescended to
walk out.

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348 NOSTROMO

Sotillo's manner had changed. The colonefl's ofif-
hand civility was slightly irresolute, as though he were in
doubt if civility were the proper course in this case. He
observed Captain Mitchell attentively before he spoke
from the big armchair behind the table in a condescend-
ing voice —

"I have concluded not to detain you, Senor Mitchell.
I am of a forgiving disposition. I make allowances.
Let this be a lesson to you, however."

The peculiar dawn of Sulaco, which seems to break
far ajsvay to the westward and creep back into the shade
of the mountains, mingled with the reddish light of the
candles. Captain Mitchell, in sign of contempt and
indifference, let his eyes roam all over the room, and he
gave a hard stare to the doctor, perched already on the
casement of one of the windows, with his eyelids
lowered, careless and thoughtful — or perhaps ashamed.

Sotillo, ensconced in the vast armchair, remarked, " I
should have thought that the feelings of a caballero
would have dictated to you an appropriate reply."

He waited for it, but Captain Mitchell remaining
mute, more from extreme resentment than from
reasoned intention, Sotillo hesitated, glanced towards
the doctor, who looked up and nodded, then went on
with a slight effort —

"Here, Sefior Mitchell, is your watch. Learn how
hasty and unjust has been your judgment of my
patriotic soldiers."

Lying back in his seat, he extended his arm over the
table and pushed the watch away slightly. Captain
Mitchell walked up with undisguised eagerness, put it
to his ear, then slipped it into his pocket coolly.

Sotillo seemed to overcome an immense reluctance.
Again he looked aside at the doctor, who stared at him
?inwinkingly.

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But as Captain Mitchell was turning away, with-
out as much as a nod or a glance, he hastened to
say —

"You may go and wait downstairs for the sefior doc-
tor, whom I am going to liberate, too. You foreigners
are insignificant, to my mind."

He forced a slight, discordant laugh out of himself,
while Captain Mitchell, for the first time, looked at him
with some interest.

"The law shall take note later on of your transgres-
sions," Sotillo hurried on. "But as for me, you can
live free, unguarded, unobserved. Do you hear, Sefior
Mitchell? You may depart to your affairs. You are
beneath my notice. My attention is claimed by mat-
ters of the very highest importance."

Captain Mitchell was very nearly provoked to an
answer. It displeased him to be liberated insultingly;
but want of sleep, prolonged anxieties, a profound
disappointment with the fatal ending of the silver-
saving business weighed upon his spirits. It was as
much as he could do to conceal his uneasiness, not
about himself perhaps, but about things in general.
It occurred to him distinctly that something under-
hand was going on. As he went out he ignored the
doctor pointedly.

"A brute!" said Sotillo, as the door shut.

Dr. Monygham slipped off the window-sill, and,
thrusting his hands into the pockets of the long, grey
dust coat he was wearing, made a few steps into the
room.

Sotillo got up, too, and, putting himself in the way,
examined him from head to foot.

"So your countrymen do not confide in you very
much, senor doctor. They do not love you, eh? Why
is that, I wonder?"

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350 NOSTROMO

The doctor, lifting his head, answered by a long, life-
less stare and the words, "Perhaps because I have lived
too long in Costaguana/*

Sotillo had a gleam of white teeth under the black
moustache.

"Aha! But you love yourself," he said, encourag-
ingly.

"If you leave them alone," the doctor said, looking
with the same lifekss stare at Sotillo's handsome face,
"they will betray themselves very soon. Meantime, I
may try to make Don Carlos speak?"

"Ah! sefior doctor," said Sotillo, wagging his head,
"you are a man of quick intelligence. We were made
to understand each other." He turned away. He
could bear no longer that expressionless and motionless
stare, which seemed to have a sort of impenetrable
emptiness like the black depth of an abyss.

Even in a man utterly devoid of moral sense there
remains an appreciation of rascality which, being con-
ventional, is perfectly clear. Sotillo thought that Dr.
Monygham, so different from all Europeans, was ready
to sell his countrymen and Charles Gould, his employer,
for some share of the San Tome silver. Sotillo did not
despise him for that. The colonel's want of moral
sense was of a profound and innocent character. It
bordered upon stupidity, moral stupidity. Nothing
that served his ends could appear to him really repre-
hensible. Nevertheless, he despised Dr. Monygham.
He had for him an immense and satisfactory contempt.
He despised him with all his heart because he did not
mean to let the doctor have any reward at all. He
despised him, not as a man without faith and honour,
but as a fool. Dr. Monygham's insight into his
character had deceived Sotillo completely. Therefore
he thought the doctor a fool.

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Since his arrival in Sulaco the eolonel's ideas had
undergone some modification.

He no longer wished for a political career in Montero's
administration. He had always doubted the safety of
that course. Since he had learned from the chief
engineer that at daylight most likely he woidd be con-
fronted by Pedro Montero his misgivings on that point
had considerably increased. The guerrillero brother of
the general — the Pedrito of popular speech — ^had a
reputation of his own. He wasn't safe to deal with.
Sotillo had vaguely planned seizing not only the treasure
but the town itself, and then negotiating at leisure.
But in the face of facts learned from the chief engineer
(who had frankly disclosed to him the whole situation)
his audacity, never of a very dashing kind, had been
replaced by a most cautious hesitation.

"An army — an army crossed the mountains under
Pedrito already," he had repeated, unable to hide his
consternation. "If it had not been that I am given the
news by a man of your position I would never have
believed it. Astonishing ! "

"An armed force," corrected the engineer, suavely.

His aim was attained. It was to keep Sulaco clear of
any armed occupation for a few hours longer, to let
those \vhom fear impelled leave the town. In the
general dismay there were families hopeful enough to
fly upon the road towards Los Hatos, which was left open
by the withdrawal of the armed rabble under Senores
Fuentes and Gamacho, to Rincon, with their enthusias-
tic welcome for Pedro Montero. It was a hasty and
risky exodus, and it was said that Hernandez, occupy-
ing with his band the woods about Los Hatos, was re-
ceiving the fugitives. That a good many people he
knew were contemplating such a flight had been well
known to the chief engineer.

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S52 NOSTROMO

Father Corbelan's efforts in the cause of that most
pious robber had not been altogether fruitless. The
political chief of Sulaco had yielded at the last moment
to the urgent entreaties of the priest, had signed a
provisional nomination appointing Hernandez a general,
and calling upon him officially in this new capacity to
preserve order in the town. The fact is that the
political chief, seeing the situation desperate, did not
care what he signed. It was the last official document
he signed before he left the palace of the Intendencia
for the refuge of the O.S.N. Company's office. But
even had he meant his act to be effective it was already
too late. The riot which he feared aud expected broke
out in less than an hour after Father Corbelan had left
him. Indeed, Father Corbelan, who had appointed a
meeting with Nostromo in the Dominican Convent,
where he had his residence in one of the cells, never
managed to reach the place. From the Intendencia he
had gone straight on to the Avellanos's house to tell
his brother-in-law, and though he stayed tliere no
more than half an hour he had found himself cut off
from his ascetic abode. Nostromo, after waiting there
for some time, watching uneasily the increasing uproar
in the street, had made his way to the offices of the
Porvenir, and stayed there till daylight, as Decoud had
mentioned in the letter to his sister. Thus the Capa-
taz, instead of riding towards the Los Hatos woods as
bearer of Hernandez's nomination, had remained in
town to save the life of the President Dictator, to assist
in repressing the outbreak of the mob, and at last to sail
out with the silver of the mine.

But Father Corbelan, escaping to Hernandez, had the
document in his pocket, a piece of official writing turn-
ing a bandit into a general in a memorable last official
act of the Ribierist party, whose watchwords were

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 353

honesty, peace, and progress. Probably neither the
priest nor the bandit saw the irony of it. Father
Corbelan must have found messengers to send into the
town, for early on the second day of the disturbances
there were rumours of Hernandez being on the road to
Los Hatos ready to receive those who would put them-
selves under his protection. A strange-looking horseman,
elderly and audacious, had appeared in the town, riding
slowly while his eyes examined the fronts of the houses,
as though he had never seen such high buildings before.
Before the cathedral he had dismounted, and, kneeling
in the middle of the Plaza, his bridle over his arm and
his hat lying in front of him on the groimd, had bowed
his head, crossing himself and beating his breast for
some little time. Remounting his horse, with a feariess
but not unfriendly look round the little gathering
formed about his public devotions, he had asked for the
Casa Avellanos. A score of hands were extended in
answer, with fingers pointing up the Calle de la Con-
stitucion.

The horseman had gone on with only a glance of
casual curiosity upwards to the windows of the Amarilla
Club at the comer. His stentorian voice shouted
periodically in the empty street, "Which is the Casa
Avellanos?" till an answer came from the scared porter,
and he disappeared under the gate. The letter he was
bringing, written by Father Corbelan with a pencil by
the camp-fire of Hernandez, was addressed to Don Jos^,
of whose critical state the priest was not aware. An-
tonia read it, and, after consulting Charies Gould, sent
it on for the information of the gentlemen garrisoning
the Amarilla Club. For herself, her mind was made
up; she would rejoin her uncle; she would entrust the
last day — ^the last hours perhaps — of her father's life
to the keeping of the bandit, whose existence was a

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354 NOSTROMO

V protest against the irresponsible tyranny of all parties
Blike, against the moral darkness of the land. The
gloom of Los Hatos woods was preferable; a life of hard-
ships in the train of a robber band less debasing. An-
tonia embraced with all her soul her uncle's obstinate
defiance of misfortime. It was grounded in the belief
in the man whom she loved.

In his message the Vicar-General answered upon his
head for Hernandez's fidelity. As to his power, he
pointed out that he had remained unsubdued for so
many years. In that letter Decoud's idea of the new
Occidental State (whose flourishing and stable con-
dition is a matter of common knowledge now) was for
the first time made pubhc and used as an argument.
Hernandez, ex-bandit and the last general of Ribierist
creation, was confident of being able to hold the tract of
coimtry between the woods of Los Hatos and the coast
range till that devoted patriot, Don Martin Decoud,
could bring General Barrios back to Sulaco for the re-
conquest of the town.

"Heaven itself wills it. Providence is on our side,"
wrote Father Corbelan; there was no time to reflect upon
or to controvert his statement; and if the discussion
started upon the reading of that letter in the Amarilla
Club was violent, it was also shortlived. In the
general bewilderment of the collapse some jumped at
the idea with joyful astonishment as upon the amazing
discovery of a new hope. Others became fascinated by
the prospect of immediate personal safety for their
women and children. The majority caught at it as a
drowning man catches at a straw. Father Corbelan
was unexpectedly offering them a refuge from Pedrito
Montero with his Uaneros allied to Senores Fuentes and
Gamacho with their armed rabble.

All the latter part of the afternoon an animated

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 356

discussion went on in the big rooms of the Amarilla
Club. Even those members posted at the windows
with rifles and carbines to guard the end of the street
in case of an offensive return of the populace shouted
their opinions and arguments over their shoulders. As
dusk fell Don Juste Lopez, inviting those caballeros who
were of his way of thinking to follow him, withdre^v
into the corredor, where at a little table in the light oi
two candles he busied himself in composing an address,
or rather a solemn declaration to be presented to Pe-
drito Montero by a deputation of such members of
Assembly as had elected to remain in town. His idea
was to propitiate him in order to save the form at least
of parliamentary institutions. Seated before a blank
sheet of paper, a goose-quill pen in his hand and surged
upon from all sides, he turned to the right and to the
left, repeating with solemn insistence —

"Caballeros, a moment of silence! A moment of
silence! We ought to make it clear that we bow in all
good faith to the accomplished facts.*'

The utterance of that phrase seemed to give him a
melancholy satisfaction. The hubbub of voices round
him was growing strained and hoarse, ti the sudden
pauses the excited grimacing of the faces would sink all
at once into the stillness of profoimd dejection.

Meantime, the exodus had begun. Carretas full of
ladies and children rolled swaying across the Plaza, with
men walking or riding by their side; moimted parties
followed on mides and horses; the poorest were setting
out on foot, men and women carrying bimdles, clasping
babies in their arms, leading old people, dragging along
the bigger children. When Charles Gould, after leaving
the doctor and the engineer at the Casa Viola, entered
the town by the harbour gate, all those that had meant
to go were gone, and the others had barricaded them-

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356 NOSTROMO

selves in their houses. In the whole dark street there
was only one spot of flickering lights and moving figures,
where the Senor Administrador recognized his wife's
carriage waiting at the door of the Avellanos's house.
He rode up, almost unnoticed, and looked on without a
word while some of his own servants came out of the
gate carrying Don Jose Avellanos, who, with closed eyes
and motionless features, appeared perfectly lifeless.
His wife and Antonia walked on each side of the im-
provised stretcher, which was put at once into the
carriage. The two women embraced; while from the
other side of the landau Father Corbelan's emissary,
with his ragged beard all streaked with grey, and high,
bronzed cheek-bones, stared, sitting upright in the
saddle. Then Antonia, dry-eyed, got in by the side of
the stretcher, and, after making the sign of the cross
rapidly, lowered a thick veil upon her face. The
servants and the three or four neighbours who had come
to assist, stood back, uncovering their heads. On the
box, Ignacio, resigned now to driving all night (and to
having perhaps his throat cut before daylight) looked
back surlily over his shoulder.

"Drive carefully," cried Mrs. Gould in a tremulous
voice.

"iSi, carefully; si nina^^^ he mumbled, chewing his
lips, his roimd leathery cheeks quivering. And the
landau rolled slowly out of the light.

"I will see them as far as the ford," said Charles
Gould to his wife. She stood on the edge of the side-
walk with her hands clasped lightly, and nodded to him
as he followed after the carriage. And now the win-
dows of the Amarilla Club were dark. The last spark
of resistance had died out. Turning his head at the
comer, Charles Gould saw his wife crossing over to their
own gate in the lighted patch of the street. One of their

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 357

neighbours, a well-known merchant and landowner of
the province, followed at her elbow, talking with great
gestures. As she passed in all the lights went out in the
street, which remained dark and empty from end to end.

The houses of the vast Plaza were lost in the night.
High up, like a star, there was a small gleam in one of j
the towers of the cathedral; and the equestrian statue y/
gleamed pale against the black trees of the Alameda,
like a ghost of royalty haunting the scenes of revolution.
The rare prowlers they met ranged themselves against
the wall. Beyond the last houses the carriage rolled
noiselessly on the soft cushion of dust, and with a
greater obscurity a feeling of freshness seemed to fall
from the fohage of the trees bordering the country road.
The emissary from Hernandez's camp pushed his horse
close to Charles Gould.

"Caballero," he said in an interested voice, "you are
he whom they call the King of Sulaco, the master of the
mine? Is it not so?"

"Yes, I am the -master of the mine," answered
Charles Gould.

The man cantered for a time in silence, then said, "I
have a brother, a sereiio in your service in the San
Tome valley. You have proved yourself a just man.
There has been no wrong done to any one since you
called upon the people to work in the mountains. My
brother says that no oflBcial of the Government, no
oppressor of the Campo, has been seen on your side of
the stream. Your own oflBcials do not oppress the
people in the gorge. Doubtless they are afraid of your
severity. You are a just man and a powerful one," he
added.

He spoke in an abrupt, independent tone, but evi-
dently he was communicative with a purpose. He told
Charles Gould that he had been a ranchero in one of the

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858 NOSTROMO

lower valleys, far south, a neighbour of Hernandez in
the old days, and godfather to his eldest boy; one of
those who joined him in his resistance to the recruiting
raid which was the beginning of all their misfortunes.
It was he that, when his compadre had been carried off,
had buried his wife and children, murdered by the
soldiers.

"Si,senor,"he muttered, hoarsely,"! and two or three
others, the lucky ones left at liberty, buried them all in
one grave near the ashes of their ranch, imder the tree
that had shaded its roof."

It was to him, too, tjiat Hernandez came after he had
deserted, three years afterwards. He had still his
imiform on with the sergeant's stripes on the sleeve, and
the blood of his colonel upon his hands and breast.
Three troopers followed him, of those who had started
in pursuit but had ridden on for liberty. And he told
Charles Gould how he and a few friends, seeing those
soldiers, lay in ambush behind some rocks ready to pull
the trigger on them, when he recognized his compadre
and jumped up from cover, shouting his name, because
he knew that Hernandez could not have been coming
back on an errand of injustice and oppression. Those
three soldiers, together with the party who lay behind
the rocks, had formed the nucleus of the famous band,
and he, the narrator, had been the favourite lieutenant
of Hernandez for many, many years. He mentioned
proudly that the oflBcials had put a price upon his head,
too; but it did not prevent it getting sprinkled with grey
upon his shoulders. And now he had lived long enough
to see his compadre made a general.

He had a burst of muffled laughter. "And now from
robbers we have become soldiers. But look, Caballero,
at those who made us soldiers and him a general ! Look
at these people!"

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Ignacio shouted. The light of the carriage lamps,
running along the nopal hedges that crowned the bank
on each side, flashed upon the scared faces of people
standing aside in the road, sunk deep, like an English
country lane, into the soft soil of the Campo. They
cowered; their eyes glistened very big for a second; and
then the light, running on, fell upon the half -denuded
roots of a big tree, on another stretch of nopal hedge,
caught up another bunch of faces glaring back appre-
hensively. Three women — of whom one was carrying a
child — and a couple of men in civilian dress — one armed
with a sabre and another with a gun — were grouped
about a donkey carrying two bundles tied up in blan-
kets. Further on Ignacio shouted again to pass a
carreta, a long wooden box on two high wheels, with the
door at the back swinging open. Some ladies in it
must have recognized the white mules, because they
screamed out, "Is it you, Dofia Emilia?"

At the turn of the road the glare of a big fire filled the
short stretch vaulted over by the branches meeting over-
head. Near the ford of a shallow stream a roadside
rancho of woven rushes and a roof of grass had been set
on fire by accident, and the flames, roaring viciously, lit
up an open space blocked with horses, mules, and a
distracted, shouting crowd of people. When Ignacio
pulled up, several ladies on foot assailed the carriage,
begging Antonia for a seat. To their clamour she
answered by pointing silently to her father.

"I must leave you here," said Charles Gould, in the
uproar. The flames leaped up sky-high, and in the re-
coil from the scorchiag heat across the road the stream
of fugitives pressed against the carriage., A middle-
aged lady dressed in black silk, but with a coarse manta
over her head and a rough branch for a stick in her hand,
staggered against the front wheel. Two yoimg girls.

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360 NOSTROMO

frightened and silent, were clinging to her arms. Charles
Gould knew her very well.

^' Misericordia I We are getting terribly bruised in
this crowd!" she exclaimed, smiling up courageously to
him. "We have started on foot. All our servants ran
away yesterday to join the democrats. We are going
to put ourselves imder the protection of Father Corbe-
lan, of your sainted imcle, Antonia. He has wrought a
miracle in the heart of a most merciless robber. A
miracle!"

She raised her voice gradually up to a scream as she
was borne along by the pressure of people getting out of
the way of some carts coming up out of the ford at a
gallop, with loud yells and cracking of whips. Great
masses of sparks mingled with black smoke flew over the
road; the bamboos of the walls detonated in the fire with
the sound of an irregular fusillade. And then the
bright blaze sank suddenly, leaving only a red dusk
crowded with aimless dark shadows drifting in con-
trary directions; the noise of voices seemed to die away
with the flame; and the tumult of heads, arms, quarrell-
ing, and imprecations passed on fleeing into the dark-
ness.

"I must leave you now," repeated Charles Gould to
Antonia. She turned her head slowly and uncovered
her face. The emissary and compadre of Hernandez
spurred his horse close up.

"Has not the master of the mine any message to send
to Hernandez, the master of the Campo?"

The truth of the comparison struck Charles Gould
heavily. In his determined purpose he held the mine,
\and the indomitable bandit held the Campo by the
same precarious tenure. They were equals before the
lawlessness of the land. It was impossible to disen-
tangle one's activity from its debasing contacts. A

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 361

close-meshed net of crime and corruption lay upon the
whole country. An immense and weary discourage-
ment sealed his lips for a time.

"You are a just man," urged the emissary of Her-
nandez. "Look at those people who made my com-
padre a general and have turned us all into soldiers.
Look at those oligarchs fleeing for life, with only the
clothes on their backs. My compadre does not think
of that, but our followers may be wondering greatly, and
I would speak for them to you. Listen, sefior! For
many months now the Camjx) has been our own. We
need ask no man for anything; but soldiers must have
their pay to live honestly when the wars are over. It
is believed that your soul is so just that a prayer from
you would cure the sickness of every beast, like the
orison of the upright judge. Let me have some words
from your lips that would act like a charm upon the
doubts of our partida, where all are men."

"Do you hear what he says?" Charles Gould said in
English to Antonia.

"Forgive us our misery!" she exclaimed, hurriedly.
"It is your character that is the inexhaustible treasure
which may save us all yet; your character, Carlos, notX
your wealth. I entreat you to give this man your word
that you will accept any arrangement my uncle may
make with their chief. One word. He will want no
more."

On the site of the roadside hut there remained nothing
but an enormous heap of embers, throwing afar a
darkening red glow, in which Antonia's face appeared
deeply flushed with excitement. Charlei? Gould, with
only a short hesitation, pronounced the required pledge.
He was like a man who had ventured on a precipitous
path with no room to turn, where the only chance of
safety is to press forward. At that moment he under-

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362 NOSTROMO

stood it thoroughly as he looked down at Don Jose
stretched out, hardly breathing, by the side of the erect
Antonia, vanquished in a lifelong struggle with the
powers of moral darkness, whose stagnant depths breed
monstrous crimes and monstrous illusions. In a few
words the emissary from Hernandez expressed his com-
plete satisfaction. Stoically Antonia lowered her veil,
resisting the longing to inquire about Decoud's escape.
But Ignacio leered morosely over his shoulder.

"Take a good look at the mules, mi amOy^ he gnina-
bledi "You shall never see them again!" ,

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CHAPTER FOUR

Charles Gould turned towards the town. Before
bim the jagged peaks of the Sierra came out all black in
the clear dawn. Here and there a muffled lepero
whisked round the corner of a grass-grown street before
the ringing hoofs of his horse. Dogs barked behir^d the
walls of the gardens; and with the colourless light
the chill of the snows seemed to fall from the mountains
upon the disjointed pavements and the shuttered houses
with broken cornices and the plaster peeling in patches
between the flat pilasters of the fronts. The daybreak
struggled with the gloom under the arcades on the Plaza,
with no signs of country people disposing their goods
for the day's market, piles of fruit, bundles of vegetables
ornamented with flowers, on low benches under enor-
mous mat umbrellas; with no cheery early morning
bustle of villagers, women, children, and loaded don-
keys. Only a few scattered knots of revolutionists
stood in the vast space, all looking one way from under
their slouched hats for some sign of news from Rincon.
The largest of those groups turned about like one man
as Charles Gould passed, and shouted, *'Viva la liber-
tad I " after him in a menacing tone.

Charles Gould rode on, and turned into the archway
of his house. In the patio littered with straw, a practi-
cante, one of Dr. Monygham's native assistants, sat on
the ground with his back against the rim of the fountain,
fingering a guitar discreetly, while two girls of the lower
class, standing up before him, shuffled their feet a little
and waved their arms, humming a popular dance tune.

363

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364 NOSTROMO

Most of the wounded during the two days of rioting had
been taken away already by their friends and relations,
but several figures could be seen sitting up balancing
their bandaged heads in time to the music. Charles
Gould dismounted. A sleepy mozo coming out of the
bakery door took hold of the horse's bridle; the practi-
cante endeavoured to conceal his guitar hastily; the
girls, imabashed, stepped back smiling; and Charles
Gould, on his way to the staircase, glanced into a dark
corner of the patio at another group, a mortally
wounded Cargador with a woman kneeling by his side;
she mumbled prayers rapidly, trying at the same time
to force a piece of orange between the stiffening lips
of the dying man.

( The cruel futility of things stood unveiled in the levity
knd sufferings of that incorrigible people; the cruel
futility of lives and of deaths thrown away in the vain
endeavour to attain an enduring solution of the prob-
lem. Unlike Decoud, Charles Gould could not play
lightly a part in a tragic farce. It was (ragic enough for
him in all conscience, but he could see no farcical ele-
ment. He suffered too much under a conviction of
irremediable folly. He was too severely practical and
too idealistic to look upon its terrible humours with
amusement, as Martin Decoud, the imaginative ma-
terialist, was able to do in the dry light of his scepticism.
r^To him, as to all of us, the compromises with his con-
L science appeared uglier than ever in the light of failure.
His taciturnity, assumed with a purpose, had prevented
him from tampering openly with his thoughts; but the
Gould Concession had insidiously corrupted his judg-
ment. He might have known, he said to himself, lean-
ing over the balustrade of the corredor, that Ribierism
could never come to anything. The mine had cor-
rupted his judgment by making him sick of bribing and

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intriguing merely to have his work left alone from day
to day. Like his father, he did not like to be robbed.
It exasperated him. He had persuaded himself that,
apart from higher considerations, the backing up of Don
Jose's hopes of reform was good business. He had gone
forth into the senseless fray as his poor uncle, whose
sword hung on the wall of his study, had gone forth — in
the defence of the commonest decencies of organized .
society. Only his weapon was the wealth of the mine Jr
more far-reaching and subtle than an honest blade oi
steel fitted into a simple brass guard.

More dangerous to the wielder, too, this weapon of
wealth, double-edged with the cupidity and misery of
mankind, steeped in all the vices of self-uiaulgence as
in a concoction of poisonous roots, tainting the very
cause for which it is drawn, always ready to turn awk-
wardly in the hand. There was nothing for it now but
to go on using it. But he promised himself to see it
shattered into small bits before he let it be wrenched
from his grasp.

After all, with his English parentage and English
upbringing, he perceived that he was an adventurer in
Costaguana, the descendant of adventurers enlisted in a
foreign legion, of men who had sought fortune in a
revolutionary war, who had planned revolutions, who
had believed in revolutions. For all the uprightness of
his character, he had something of an adventurer's easy
morality which takes count of personal risk in the
ethical appraising of his action. He was prepared, if
need be, to blow up the whole San Tome mountain sky
high out of the territory of the Republic. This reso-
lution expressed the tenacity of his character, the re-
morse of that subtle conjugal infidelity through which
his wife was no longer the sole mistress of his thoughts,
something of his father's imaginative weakness, and

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366 NOSTROMO

something, too, of the spirit of a buccaneer throwing a
lighted match into the magazine rather than surrender
his ship.

Down below in the patio the woimded Cargador had
breathed his last. The woman cried out once, and her
cry, unexpected and shrill, made all the wounded sit
up. The practicante scrambled to his feet, and, gui-
tar in hand, gazed steadily in her direction with ele-
vated eyebrQws. The two girls — sitting now one on
each side of their wounded relative, with their knees
drawn up and long cigars between their lips — ^nodded
at each other significantly.

Charles Gould, looking down over the balustrade, saw
three men dressed ceremoniously in black frock-coats
with white shirts, and wearing European round hats,
enter the patio from the street. One of them, head and
shoulders taller than the two others, advanced with
marked gravity, leading the way. This was Don Juste
Lopez, accompanied by two of his friends, members of
Assembly, coming to call upon the Administrador of the
San Tome mine at this early hour. They saw him, too,
waved their hands to him urgently, walking up the
stairs as if in procession.

Don Juste, astonishingly changed by having shaved
off altogether his damaged beard, had lost with it nine-
tenths of his outward dignity. Even at that time of
serious pre-occupation Charles Gould could not help
noting the revealed ineptitude in the aspect of the man.
His companions looked crestfallen and sleepy. One
kept on passing the tip of his tongue over his parched
lips; the other's eyes strayed dully over the tiled floor of
the corredor, while Don Juste, standing a little in ad-
vance, harangued the Senor Administrador of the San
Tome mine. It was his firm opinion that forms had to
be observed. A new governor is always visited by

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deputations from the Cabildo, which is the Municipal
Council, from the Consulado, the commercial Board,
and it was proper that the Provincial Assembly should
send a deputation, too, if only to assert the existence
of parliamentary institutions. Don Juste proposed that
Don Carlos Gould, as the most prominent citizen of the
province, should join the Assembly's deputation. His
position was exceptional, his personality known through
the length and breadth of the whole Republic. OflScial
courtesies must not be neglected, if they are gone through
with a bleeding heart. The acceptance of accomplished
facts may save yet the precious vestiges of parliamentary
institutions. Don Juste's eyes glowed dully ; he believed
in parliamentary institutions — and the convinced drone
of his voice lost itself in the stillness of the house like the
deep buzzing of some ponderous insect.

Charles Gould had turned round to listen patiently,
leaning his elbow on the balustrade. He shook his
head a little, refusing, almost touched by the anxious
gaze of the President of the Provincial Assembly. It
was not Charles Gould's policy to make the San Tome
mine a party to any formal proceedings.

"My advice, seflores, is that you should wait for your
fate in your houses. There is no necessity for you to
give yourselves up formally into Montero's hands.
Submission to the inevitable, as Don Juste calls it, is all
very weH, but when the inevitable is called Pedrito
Montero there is no need to exhibit pointedly the whole
extent of your surrender. The fault of this country is
the want of measure in political life. Flat acquiescence
in illegality, followed by sanguinary reaction — that,
seflores, is not the way to a stable and prosperous future."

Charles Gould stopped before the sad bewilderment
of the faces, the wondering, anxious glances of the eyes.
The feeling of pity for those men, putting all their trust

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868 NOSTROMO

into w^ords of some sort, while murder and rapine
stalked over the land, had betrayed him into what:
seemed empty loquacity. Don Juste murmured —

"You are abandoning us, Don Carlos. . . . And
yet, parliamentary institutions "

He could not finish from grief. For a moment he put
his hand over his eyes. Charles Gould, in his fear of
empty loquacity, made no answer to the charge. He
returned in silence their ceremonious bows. His
taciturnity was his refuge. He understood that what
they sought was to get the influence of the San Tome
mine on their side. They wanted to go on a conciliating
errand to the victor under the wing of the Gould Con-
cession. Other public bodies — ^the Cabildo, the Con-
sulado — would be coming, too, presently, seeking the
support of the most stable, the most effective force
they had ever known to exist in their province.

The doctor, arriving with his sharp, jerky walk, found
that the master had retired into his own room with
orders not to be disturbed on any account. But Dr.
Monygham was not anxious to see Charles Gould at
once. He spent some time in a rapid examination of
his wounded. He gazed down upon each in turn,
rubbing his chin between his thumb and forefinger; his
steady stare met without expression their silently in-
quisitive look. All these cases were doing well; but
when he came to the dead Cargador he stopped a little
longer, surveying not the man who had ceased to suffer,
but the woman kneeling in silent contemplation of the
rigid face, with its pinched nostrils and a white gleam in
the imperfectly closed eyes. She lifted her head slowly,
and said in a dull voice —

" It is not long since he had become a Cargador — only
a few weeks. His worship the Capataz had accepted
him after many entreaties,"

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**I am not responsible for the great Capataz," mut-
tered the doctor, moving off.

Directing his course upstairs towards the door of
Charles Gould's room, the doctor at the last moment
hesitated; then, turning away from the handle with a
shrug of his uneven shoulders, slunk off hastily along the
corredor in search of Mrs. Gould's camerista.

Leonarda told him that the seflora had not risen yet.
The seiiora had given into her charge the girls belonging
to that Italian posadero. She, Leonarda, had put them
to bed in her own room. The fair girl had cried herself
to sleep, but the dark one — ^the bigger — ^had not closed
her eyes. yet. She sat up in bed clutching the sheets
right up imder her chin and staring before her like a
little witch. Leonarda did not approve of the Viola
children being admitted to the house. She made this
feeling clear by the indifferent tone in which she in-
quired whether their mother was dead yet. As to the
seiiora, she must be asleep. Ever since she had gone
into her room after seeing the departure of Dona
Antonia with her dying father, there had been no sound
behind her door.

The doctor, rousing himself out of profound reflection,
told her abruptly to call her mistress at once. He
hobbled off to wait for Mrs. Gould in the sala. He was
very tired, but too excited to sit down. In this great
drawing-room, now empty, in which his withered soul
had been refreshed after many arid years and his out-;
cast spirit had accepted silently the toleration of many
side-glances, he wandered haphazard amongst the
chairs and tables till Mrs. Gould, enveloped in a
morning wrapper, came in rapidly.

"You know that I never approved of the silver being
sent away," the doctor began at once, as a preliminary
to the narrative of his night's advttiturers in association

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870 NOSTROMO

with Captain Mitchell, the engineer-in-chief, and old
Viola, at Sotillo^s headquarters. To the doctor, with
his special conception of this poUtical crisis, the removal
of the silver had seemed an irrational and ill-omened
measure. It was as if a general were sending the best
part of his troops away on the eve of battle upon some
recondite pretext. The whole lot of ingots might have
been concealed somewhere where they could have been
got at for the purpose of staving off the dangers which
were menacing the security of the Gould Concession.
The Administrador had acted as if the inunense and
powerful prosperity of the mine had been founded on
methods of probity, on the sense of usefulness. And it
was nothing of the kind. The method followed had
been the only one possible. The Gould Concession had
ransomed its way through all those years. It was a
nauseous process. He quite understood that Charles
Gould had got sick of it and had left the old path to
back up that hopeless attempt at reform. The doctor
did not believe in the reform of Costaguana. And now
the mine was back again in its old path, with the dis-
advantage that henceforth it had to deal hot only with
the greed provoked by its wealth, but with the resent-

ent awakened by the attempt to free itself from its
bondage to moral corruption. That was the penalty of
failure. What made him uneasy was that Charles
Gould seemed to him to have weakened at the decisive
moment when a frank return to the old methods was the
only chance. Listening to Decoud's wild scheme had
been a weakness.

The doctor flung up his arms, exclaiming, "Decoud!
Decoud!" He hobbled about the room with sKght,
angry laughs. Many years ago both his ankles had
been seriously damaged in the course of a certain
investigation conducted in the castle ol Sta. Marta by a

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(bo

THE LIGHTHOUSE 371

commission composed of military men. Their nomina-
tion had been signified to them unexpectedly at the dead
of night, with scowling brow, flashing eyes, and in a
tempestuous voice, by Guzman Bento. The old tyrant,
maddened by one of his sudden accesses of suspicion,
mingled spluttering app>eals to their fidelity with
imprecations and horrible menaces. The cells and
casements of the castle on the hill had been already
filled with prisoners. The commission was charged
now with the task of discovering the iniquitous con-
spiracy against the Citizen-Saviour of his coimtry.

Their dread of the raving tyrant translated itself into
a hasty ferocity of procedure. The Citizen-Saviour was
not accustomed to wait. A conspiracy had to be dis-
covered. The courtyards of the castle resounded with
the clanking of leg-irons, sounds of blows, yells of pain;
and the commission of high oflScers laboured feverishly,
concealing their distress and apprehensions from each
other, and especially from their secretary. Father Beron,
an army chaplain, at that time very much in the con-
fidence of the Citizen-Saviour. That priest was a big
round-shouldered man, with an unclean-looking, over-
grown tonsure on the top of his flat head, of a dingy,
yellow complexion, softly fat, with greasy stains all
down the front of his lieutenant's uniform, and a small
cross embroidered in white cotton on his left breast. He
had a heavy nose and a pendant lip. Dr. Monygham
remembered him still. He remembered him against all
the force of his will striving its utmost to forget. Father
Beron had been adjoined to the commission by Guzman
Bento expressly for the purpose that his enlightened zeal
should assist them in their labours. Dr. Monygham could
by no manner of means forget the zeal of Father Beron,
or his face, or the pitiless, monotonous voice in which
he pronoimced the words, "Will you confess now?"

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372 NOSTROMO

This memory did not make him shudder, but it had
made of him what he was in the eyes of respectable
people, a man careless of common decencies, something
between a clever vagabond and a disreputable doctor.
But not all respectable people would have had the
necessary delicacy of sentiment to understand with
what trouble of mind and accuracy of vision Dr. Monyg-
ham, medical oflScer of the San Tome mine, remembered
Father Beron, army chaplain, and once a secretary of
a military commission. After all these years Dr.
Monygham, in his rooms at the end of the hospital
building in the San Tome gorge, remembered Father
Beron as distinctly as ever. He remembered that priest
at night, sometimes, in his sleep. On such nights the
doctor waited for daylight with a candle lighted, and
walking the whole length of his rooms to and fro,
staring down at his bare feet, his arms hugging his
sides tightly. He would dream of Father Beron
sitting at the end of a long black table, behind which,
in a row, appeared the heads, shoulders, and epaulettes
of the military members, nibbling the feather of a quill
pen, and listening with weary and impatient scorn to
the protestations of some prisoner calling heaven to
witness of his innocence, till he burst out, "What's the
use of wasting time over that miserable nonsense! Let
me take him outside for a while." And Father Beron
would go outside after the clanking prisoner, led away
between two soldiers. Such interludes happened on
many days, many times, with many prisoners. When
the prisoner returned he was ready to make a full con-
fession. Father Beron would declare, leaning forward
with that didl, surfeited look which can be seen in the
eyes of gluttonous persons after a heavy meaL

The priest's inquisitorial instincts suffered but little
from the want of classical apparatus of the Inquisition

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At no time of the world's history have men been at a
loss how to inflict mental and bodily anguish upon
their fellow-creatures. This aptitude came to them in
the growing complexity of their passions and the early
refinement of their ingenuity. But it may safely be said
that primeval man did not go to the trouble of inventing
tortures. He was indolent and pure of heart. He
brained his neighbour ferociously with a stone axe from
necessity and without malice. The stupidest mind
may invent a rankling phrase or brand the innocent with
a cruel aspersion. A piece of string and a ramrod; a
few muskets in combination with a length of hide rope;
or even a simple mallet of heavy, hard wood applied
with a swing to human fingers or to the joints of a
human body is enough for the infliction of the most
exquisite torture. The doctor had been a very stubborn
prisoner, and, as a natural consequence of that "bad
disposition" (so Father Beron called it), his subjugation
had been very crushing and very complete. That is
why the limp in his walk, the twist of his shoulders, the
scars on his cheeks were so pronounced. His con-
fessions, when they came at last, were very complete,
too. Sometimes on the nights when he walked the
floor, he wondered, grinding his teeth with shame and
rage, at the fertility of his imagination when stimulated
by a sort of pain which makes truth, honour, self-
respect, and life itself matters of little moment.

And he could not forget Father Beron with his mo-
notonous phrase, "Will you confess now?" reaching him
in an awful iteration and lucidity of meaning through the
delirious incoherence of imbearable pain. He could
not forget. But that was not the worst. Had he met
Father Beron in the street after all these years Dr.
Monygham was sure he would have quailed before him.
This contingency was not to be feared now. Father

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374 NOSTROMO

Beron was dead; but the sickening certitude prevented
Dr. Monygham from looking anybody in the face.

Dr. Monygham had become, in a manner, the slave of
a ghost. It was obviously impossible to take his knowl-
edge of Father Beron home to Europe. When making
his extorted confessions to the Military Board, Dr.
Monygham was not seeking to avoid death. He longed
for it. Sitting half -naked for hours on the wet earth
of his prison, and so motionless that the spiders, his
companions, attached their webs to his matted hair, he
consoled the misery of his soul with acute reasonings
that he had confessed to crimes enough for a sentence of
death — that they had gone too far with him to let him
live to tell the tale.

But, as if by a refinement of cruelty. Dr. Monygham
was left for months to decay slowly in the darkness of his
grave-like prison. It was no doubt hoped that it would
finish him ofiE without the trouble of an execution; but
Dr. Monygham had an iron constitution. It was
Guzman Bento who died, not by the knife thrust of a
conspirator, but from a stroke of apoplexy, and Dr.
Monygham was liberated hastily. His fetters were
struck oflF by the light of a candle, which, after months of
gloom, hurt his eyes so much that he had to cover his
face with his hands. He was raised up. His heart was
beating violently with the fear of this liberty. When
he tried to walk the extraordinary lightness of his feet
made him giddy, and he fell down. Two sticks were
thrust into his hands, and he was pushed out of the
passage. It was dusk; candles glimmered already in
the windows of the oflEcers' quarters round the court-
yard; but the twilight sky dazed him by its enormous
and overwhelming bi:illiance. A thin poncho hung over
his naked, bony shoulders; the rags of his trousers came
down no lower than his knees; an eighteen months'

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growth of hair fell in dirty grey locks on each side of his
sharp cheek-bones. As he dragged himself past the
guard-room door, one of the soldiers, lolling outside,
moved by some obscure impulse, leaped forward with a
strange laugh and rammed a broken old straw hat on
his head. And Dr. Monygham, after having tottered,
continued on his way. He advanced one stick, then
one maimed foot, then the other stick; the other foot
followed only a very short distance along the ground,
toilfully, as though it were almost too heavy to be
moved at all; and yet his legs under the hanging angles
of the poncho appeared no thicker than the two sticks in
his hands. A ceaseless trembling agitated his bent
body, all his wasted limbs, his bony head, the conical,
ragged crown of the sombrero, whose ample flat rim
rested on his shoulders.

In such conditions of manner and attire did Dr.
Monygham go forth to take possession of his liberty.
And these conditions seemed to bind him indissolubly
to the land of Costaguana like an awful procedure of
naturalization, involving him deep in the national life,
far deeper than any amount of success and honour could
have done. They did away with his Europeanism; for
Dr. Monygham had made himself an ideal conception of \
his disgrace. It was a conception eminently fit and
proper for an oflScer and a gentleman. . Dr. Monygham,
before he went out to Costaguana, had been surgeon in *
one of Her Majesty's regiments of foot. It was a con-
ception which took no accoimt of physiological facts or
reasonable arguments; but it was not stupid for all that.
It was simple. A rule of conduct resting mainly on
severe rejections is necessarily simple. Dr. Monyg-
ham's view of what it behoved him to do was severe; it
was an ideal view, in so much that it was the imagina-
tive exaggeration of a correct feeling. It was also, in its

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376 NOSTROMO

force, influence, and persistency, the view of an emi-
nently loyal nature.

There was a great fimd of loyalty in Dr. Monygham's
nature. He had settled it all on Mrs. Gould's head. He
believed her worthy of every devotion. At the bottom
of his heart he felt an angry uneasiness before the pros-
perity of the San Tome mine, because its growth was
robbing her of all peace of mind. Costaguana was no
place for a woman of that kind. What could Charles
Gould have been thinking of when he brought her out
there! It was outrageous! And the doctor had
watched the course of events with a grim and distant
reserve which, he imagined, his lamentable history im-
posed upon him.

Loyalty to Mrs. Gould could not, however, leave out
of account the safety of her husband. The doctor had
contrived to be in town at the critical time because he
mistrusted Charles Gould. He considered him hope-
lessly infected with the madness of revolutions. That
is why he hobbled in distress in the drawing-room of the
Casa Gould on that morning, exclaiming, "Decoud,
Decoud!" in a tone of mournful irritation.

Mrs. Gould, her colour heightened, and with glisten-
ing eyes, looked straight before her at the sudden
\ enormity of that disaster. The finger-tips on one hand
rested lightly on a low little table by her side, and the
arm trembled right up to the shoulder. The sun,
which looks late upon Sulaco, issuing in all the fulness of
its power high up on the sky from behind the dazzling
snow-edge of Higuerota, had precipitated the dehcate,
smooth, pearly greyness of light, in which the town lies
steeped during the early hours, into sharp-cut masses of
black shade and spaces of hot, blinding glare. Three
long rectangles of sunshine fell through the windows of
the sala; while just across the street the front of th^

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 377

Avellanos's house appeared very sombre in its own ''^
shadow seen through the flood of light.

A voice said at the door, "What of Decoud?"

It was Charles Gould. They had not heard him
coming along the corredor. His glance just glided over
his wife and struck full at the doctor.

"You have brought some news, doctor?"

Dr. Monygham blurted it all out at once, in the rough.
For some time after he had done, the Administrador of
the San Tome mine remained looking at him without a
word. Mrs. Gould sank into a low chair with her hands
lying on her lap. A silence reigned between those three
motionless persons. Then Charles Gould spoke —

"You must want some breakfast."

He stood aside to let his wife pass first. She caught
up her husband's hand and pressed it as she went out,
raising her handkerchief to her eyes. The sight of her
husband had brought Antonia's position to her mind,
and she could not contain her tears at the thought of the
poor girl. When she rejoined the two men in the dining-
room after having bathed her face, Charles Gould was
saying to the doctor across the table —

"No, there does not seem any room for doubt."

And the doctor assented.

"No, I don't see myself how we could question that
wretched Hirsch's tale. It's only too true, I fear."

She sat down desolately at the head of the table and
looked from one to the other. The two men, without
absolutely turning their heads away, tried to avoid her
glance. The doctor even made a show of being hungry;
he seized his knife and fork, and began to eat with
emphasis, as if on the stage. Charles Gould made no
pretence of the sort; with his elbows raised squarely, he
twisted both ends of his flaming moustaches — they were
so long that his hands were quite away from his face.

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378 NOSTROMO

"I am not surprised," he muttered, abandoning
his moustaches and throwing one arm over the back
of his chair. His face was calm with that immobility
of expression which betrays the intensity of a mental
struggle. He felt that this accident had brought to a
point aH the consequences involved in his line of con-
^duct, with its conscious and subconscious intentions.
There must be an end now of this silent reserve, of that
air of impenetrability behind which he had been safe-
guarding his dignity. It was the least ignoble form of
dissembling forced upon him by that parody of civilized
institutions which offended his intelligence, his up-
rightness, and his sense of right. He was like his father.
He had no ironic eye. He was not amused at the
absurdities that prevail in this world. They hurt him
V in his innate gravity. He felt that the miserable death of
that poor Decoud took from him his inaccessible position
of a force in the background. It committed him openly
unless he wished to throw up the game — and that was
impossible. The material interests required from him
the sacrifice of his aloofness — perhaps his own safety
too. And he reflected that Decoud*s separationist
plan had not gone to the bottom with the lost silver.

The only thing that was not changed was his position
towards Mr. Holroyd. The head of silver and steel
interests had entered into Costaguana affairs with a sort
of pajssion. Costaguana had become necessary to his
existence; in the San Tomfe mine he had found the
imaginative satisfaction which other minds would get
from drama, from art, or from a risky and fascinating
sport. It was a special form of the great man's ex-
travagance, sanctioned by a moral intention, big
enough to flatter his vanity. Even in this aberration of
his genius he served the progress of the world. Charles
Gould felt sure of being understood with precision and

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 879

judged with the indulgence of their common passion.
Nothing now could surprise or startle this great man.
And Charles Gould imagined himself writing a letter to
San Francisco in some such words: ". . . . The
men at the head of the movement are dead or have
fled; the civil organization of the province is at an end
for the present; tlie Blanco party in Sulaco has col-
lapsed inexcusably, but in the characteristic manner of
this country. But Barrios, untouched in Cayta,
remains still available. I am forced to take up openly
the plan of a provincial revolution as the only way of
placing the enormous material interests involved in the
prosperity and i>eace of Sulaco in a position of perma-
nent safety. . . ." That was clear. He saw these .
words as if written in letters of fire upon the wall at/
which he was gazing abstractedly.

Mrs Gould watched his abstraction with dread. It
was a domestic and frightful phenomenon that dark-
ened and chilled the house for her like a thunder-
cloud passing over the sim. Charles Gould's fits of
abstraction depicted the energetic concentration of a
will haunted by a fixed idea. A man haunted by a
fixed idea is insane. He is dangerous even if that
idea is an idea of justice; for may he not bring the
heaven down pitilessly upon a loved head? The eyes
of Mrs. Gould, watching her husband's profile, filled
with tears again. And again she seemed to see the
despair of the unfortunate Antonia.

"What would I have done if Charley had been
drowned while we were engaged?" she exclaimed, men-
tally, with horror. Her heart turned to ice, while
her cheeks flamed up as if scorched by the blaze of a
funeral pyre consuming all her earthly aflFections. The
tears burst out of her eyes.

"Antonia will kill herself!" she cried out.

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380 NOSTROMO

This cry fell into the silence of the room with
strangely Kttle eflFect. Only the doctor, crumbling
up a piece of bread, with his head inclined on one side,
raised his face, and the few long hairs sticking out of
his shaggy eyebrows stirred in a slight frown. Dr.
Monygham thought quite sincerely that Decoud was a
singularly unworthy object for any woman's aflFection.
Then he lowered his head again, with a curl of his lip,
and his heart full of tender admiration for Mrs. Gould.

"She thinks of that girl," he said to himself; "she
thinks of the Viola children; she thinks of me; of the
wounded; of the miners; she always thinks of everybody
who is poor and miserable! But what will she do if
Charles gets the worst of it in this infernaj scrimmage
those confounded Avellanos have drawn him into? No
one seems to be thinking of her."

Charles Gould, staring at the wall, pursued his re-
flections subtly.

"I shall write to Holroyd that the San Tome mine is
big enough to take in hand the making of a new State.
It'll please him. It'll reconcile him to the risk."

But was Barrios really available? Perhaps. But he
was inaccessible. To send off a boat to Cayta was no
longer possible, since Sotillo was master of the harboiu-,
and had a steamer at his disposal. And now, with all
the democrats in the province up, and every Campo
township in a state of disturbance, where could he find
a man who would make his way successfully overland to
Cayta with a message, a ten days' ride at least; a man
of courage and resolution, who would avoid arrest or
murder, and if arrested would faithfully eat the paper?
The Capataz de Cargadores would have been just such
a man. But the Capataz of the Cargadores was no
more.

And Charles Gould, withdrawing his eyes from the

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 381

wall, said gently, "That Hirsch! What an extraor-
dinary thing! Saved himself by cKnging to the an-
chor, did he? I had no idea that he was still in Sulaco.
I thought he had gone back overland to Esmeralda
more than a week ago. He came here once to talk
to me about his hide business and some other things.
I made it clear to him that nothing could be done."

"He was afraid to start back on account of Hernandez
being about," remarked the doctor.

"And but for him we might not have known anything
of what has happened," marvelled Charles Gould.

Mrs. Gould cried out —

"Antonia must not know! She must not be told.
Not now."

"Nobody's likely to carry the news," remarked the
doctor. "It's no one's interest. Moreover, the people
here are afraid of Hernandez as if he were the devil."
He turned to Charles Gould. "It's even awkward,
because if you wanted to communicate with the ref-
ugees you could find no messenger. When Hernandez
was ranging hundreds of miles away from here the
Sulaco populace used to shudder at the tales of him
roasting his prisoners alive."

"Yes," murmured Charles Gould; "Captain Mit-
chell's Capataz was the only man in the town who had
seen Hernandez eye to eye. Father Corbelan em-
ployed him. He opened the communications first. It
is a pity that "

His voice was covered by the booming of the great
bell of the cathedral. Three single strokes, one after
another, burst out explosively, dying away in deep and
mellow vibrations. And then all the bells in the tower
of every church, convent, or chapel in town, even those
that had remained shut up for years, pealed out to-
gether with a cxa^h. In this fwiou3 flood of metp,Uiq

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882 NOSTROMO

uproar there was a power of suggesting images of strife
and violence which blanched Mrs. Gould's cheek.
Basilio, who had been waiting at table, shrinking within
himself, clung to the sideboard with chattering teeth.
It was impossible to hear yourself speak.

"Shut these windows!" Charles Gould yelled at him,
angrily. All the other servants, terrified at what they
took for the signal of a general massacre, had rushed up-
stairs, tumbling over each other, men and women, the
obscure and generally invisible population of the ground
floor on the four sides of the patio. The women, scream-
ing "Misericordia!" ran right into the room, and, fall-
ing on their knees against the walls, began to cross them-
selves convulsively. The staring heads of men blocked
the doorway in an instant- — mozos from the stable,
gardeners, nondescript helpers living on the crumbs of
the munificent house — and Charles Gould beheld all
the extent of his domestic establishment, even to the
gatekeeper. This was a half -paralyzed old man, whose
long white locks fell down to his shoulders: an heirloom
taken up by Charles Gould's familial piety. He could
remember Henry Gould, an Englishman and a Costa-
guanero of the second generation, chief of the Sulaco
province; he had been his personal mozo years and
years ago in peace and war; had been allowed to attend
his master in prison; had, on the fatal morning, fol-
lowed the firing squad; and, peeping from behind one
of the cypresses growing along the wall of the Franciscan
Convent, had seen, with his eyes starting out of his
head, Don Enrique throw up his hands and fall with
his face in the dust. Charles Gould noted particularly
the big patriarchal head of that witness in the rear of the
other servants. But he was surprised to see a shrivelled
old hag or two, of whose existence within the walls of his
house he had not been aware. They must have been the

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 383

mothers, or even the grandmothers of some of his jjeople.
There were a few children, too, more or less naked, cry-
ing and clinging to the legs of their elders. He had never
before noticed any sign of a child in his patio. Even
Leonarda, the camerista, came in a fright, pushing
through, with her spoiled, pouting face of a favourite
maid, leading the Viola girls by the hand. The crockery
rattled on table and sideboard, and the whole house
seemed to sway in the deafening wave of sound.

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CHAPTER FIVE

During the night the expectant populace had taken
possession of all the belfries in the town in order to wel-
come Pedrito Montero, who was making his entry after
having slept the night in Rincon. And first came strag-
gling in through the land gate the armed mob of all
colours, complexions, types, and states of raggedness,
calling themselves the Sulaco National Guard, and
commanded by Seiior Gamacho. Through the middle
I of the street streamed, like a torrent of rubbish, a mass
of straw hats, ponchos, gun-barrels, with an enormous
green and yellow flag flapping in their midst, in a
cloud of dust, to the- furious beating of drums. The
spectators recoiled against the walls of the houses
shouting their Vivas ! Behind the rabble could be seen
the lances of the cavalry, the "army" of Pedro Montero.
He advanced between Seiiores Fuentes and Gamacho
at the head of his llaneros, who had accomplished the
feat of crossing the Paramos of the Higuerota in a
snow-storm. They rode four abreast, mounted on
confiscated Campo horses, clad in the heterogeneous
stock of roadside stores they had looted hurriedly in
their rapid ride through the northern part of the prov-
ince; for Pedro Montero had been in a great hurry
to occupy Sulaco. The handkerchiefs knotted loosely
around their bare throats were glaringly new, and all
the right sleeves of their cotton shirts had been cut
off close to the shoulder for greater freedom in throwing
the lazo. Emaciated greybeards rode by the side of
1^311 dark youths, marked by all the hardships of cam-

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 385

paigning, with strips of raw beef twined round the
crowns of their hats, and huge iron spurs fastened to
their naked heels. Those that in the passes of the
mountain had lost their lances had provided themselves
with the goads used by the Campo cattlemen: slender
shafts of palm fully ten feet long, with a lot of loose rings
jingling under the ironshod point. They were armed
with knives and revolvers. A haggard fearlessness char-
acterized the expression of all these sun-blacked coun-
tenances; they glared down haughtily with their
scorched eyes at the crowd, or, blinking upwards in-
solently, pointed out to each other some particular
head amongst the women at the windows. When they
had ridden into the Plaza and caught sight of the eques-
trian statue of the King dazzlingly white in the sun-
shine, towering enormous and motionless above they
surges of the crowd, with its eternal gesture of saluting,
a murmur of surprise ran through their ranks. "What
is that saint in the big hat?" they asked each other.

They were a good sample of the cavalry of the plains
with which Pedro Montero had helped so much the vic-
torious career of his brother the general. The influence
which that man, brought up in coast towns, acquired in
a short time over the plainsmen of the Republic can be
ascribed only to a genius for treachery of so effective
a kind that it must have appeared to those violent men
but little removed from a state of utter savagery, as the
perfection of sagacity and virtue. The popular lore ./
of all nations testifies that duplicity and cunning, to-
gether with bodily strength, were looked upon, even
more than courage, as heroic virtues by primitive man-
kind. To overcome your adversary was the great
affair of life. Courage was taken for granted. But
the use of intelligence awakened wonder and respect.
Stratagems, providing they did not fail, were honourable;

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S86 NOSTROMO

the easy massacre of an unsuspecting enemy evoked
no feelings but those of gladness, pride, and admiration.
Not perhaps that primitive men were more faithless
than their descendants of to-day, but that they went
straighter to their aim, and were more artless in their
recognition of success as the only standard of morality.

We have changed since. The use of intelligence
awakens little wonder and less respect. But the ignorant
and barbarous plainsmen engaging in civil strife followed
willingly a leader who often managed to deliver their
enemies bound, as it were, into their hands. Pedro Mon-
tero had a talent for lulling his adversaries into a sense
of security. And as men learn wisdom with extreme
slowness, and are always ready to believe promises that
flatter their secret hopes, Pedro Montero was successful
time after time. Whether only a servant or some inferior
oflScial in the Costaguana Legation in Paris, he had
rushed back to his country directly he heard that his
brother had emerged from the obscurity of his frontier
commandancia. He had managed to deceive by his
gift of plausibility the chiefs of the Ribierist movement
in the capital, and even the acute agent of the San
Tome mine had failed to understand him thoroughly.
At once he had obtained an enormous influence over
his brother. They were very much alike in appearance,
both bald, with bunches of crisp hair above their ears,
arguing the presence of some negro blood. Only Pedro
was smaller than the general, more delicate altogether,
with an ape-like faculty for imitating all the outward
signs of refinement and distinction, and with a parrot-
like talent for languages. Both brothers had received
some elementary instruction by the munificence of a
great European traveller, to whom their father had been
a body-servant during his journeys in the interior of
the country. In General Montero's case it enabled

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THE LIGHTHOUSE S81

him to rise from the ranks. Pedrito, the yomiger, in-
corrigibly lazy and slovenly, had drifted aimlessly from
one coast town to another, hanging about coimting-
houses, attaching himself to strangers as a sort of valet-
de-placCy picking up an easy and disreputable living.
His ability to read did nothing for him but fill his head
with absurd visions. His actions were usually deter-
mined by motives so improbable in themselves as to
escape the penetration of a rational person.

Thus at first sight the agent of the Gould Concession
in Sta. Marta had credited him with the possession of
sane views, and even with a restraining power over the
general's everlastingly discontented vanity. It could
never have entered his head that Pedrito Montero,
lackey or inferior scribe, lodged in the garrets of the
various Parisian hotels where the Costaguana Legation
used to shelter its diplomatic dignity, had been devour-
ing the lighter sort of historical works in the French
language, such, for instance as the books of Imbert
de Saint Amand upon the Second Empire. But Pedrito
had been struck by the splendour of a brilliant court,
and had conceived the idea of an existence for himself
where, like the Due de Morny, he would associate the
command of every pleasure with the conduct of political
aflfairs and enjoy power supremely in every way. No-
body could have guessed that. And yet this was one
of the immediate causes of the Monterist Revolution.
This will appear less incredible by the reflection that
the fundamental causes were the same as ever, rooted
in the political immaturity of the people, in the indo-
lence of the upper classes and the mental darkness of
the lower.

Pedrito Montero saw in the elevation of his brother
the road wide open to his wildest imaginings. This was
what made the Monterist pronunciamiento so uupre-

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388 NOSTROMO

ventable. The general himself probably could have been
bought oflF, pacified with flatteries, despatched on a
diplomatic mission to Europe. It was his brother who
had egged him on from first to last. He wanted to be-
come the most brilliant statesman of South America.
He did not desire supreme power. He would have been
afraid of its labour and risk, in fact. Before all, Pedrito
Montero, taught by his European experience, meant
to acquire a serious fortune for himself. With this
object in view he obtained from his brother, on the
very morrow of the successful battle, the permission
to push on over the mountains and take possession
of Sulaco. Sulaco was the land of future prosperity,
the chosen land of material progress, the only province
in the Republic of interest to European capitaUsts.
Pedrito Montero, following the example of the Due de
Morny, meant to have his share of this prosperity.
This is what he meant literally. Now his brother was
master of the country, whether as President, Dictator,
or even as Emperor — why not as an Emperor? — he
meant to demand a share in every enterprise — in rail-
ways, in mines, in sugar estates, in cotton mills, in land
companies, in each and every undertaking — as the price
of his protection. The desire to be on the spot early
was the real cause of the celebrated ride over the moun-
tains with some two hundred Uaneros, an enterprise of
which the dangers had not appeared at first clearly to
his impatience. Coming from a series of victories, it
seemed to him that a Montero had only to appear
to be master of the situation. This illusion had be-
trayed him into a rashness of which he was becoming
aware. As he rode at the head of his Uaneros he re-
gretted that there were so few of them. The enthusiasm
of the populace reassured him. They yelled "Fiva
Montero ! Viva Pedrito I " In order to make them stiU

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 389

more enthusiastic, and from the natural pleasure he had
in dissembhng, he dropped the reins an his horse's neck,
and with a tremendous eflFect of familiarity and con-
fidence slipped his hands under the arms of Senores
Fuentes and Gamacho. In that posture, with a ragged
town mozo holding his horse by the bridle, he rode
triumphantly across the Plaza to the door of the In-
tendencia. Its old gloomy walls seemed to shake in
the acclamations that rent the air and covered the
crashing peals of the cathedral bells.

Pedro Montero, the brother of the general, dis-
mounted into a shouting and perspiring throng of en-
thusiasts whom the ragged Nationals were pushing
back fiercely. Ascending a few steps he surveyed the
large crowd gaping at him and the bullet-speckled
walls of the houses opposite lightly veiled by a sunny
haze of dust. The word "PORVENIR" m immense
black capitals, alternating with broken windows, stared
at him across the vast space; and he thought with de-
light of the hour of vengeance, because he was very sure
of laying his hands upon Decoud. On his left hand,
Gamacho, big and hot, wiping his hairy wet face,
uncovered a set of yellow fangs in a grin of stupid hilar-
ity. On his right, Senor Fuentes, small and lean,
looked on with compressed lips. The crowd stared
literally open-mouthed, lost in eager stillness, as
though they had expected the great guerrillero, the
famous Pedrito, to begin scattering at once some sort
of visible largesse. What he began was a speech. He
began it with the shouted word "Citizens!" which
reached even those in the middle of the Plaza. After-
wards the greater part of the citizens remained fasci-
nated by the orator's action alone, his tip-toeing, the
arms flung above his head with the fists clenched, a
hand, laid flat upon the heart, the silver gleam of rolling

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390 NOSTROMO

eyes, the sweeping, pointing, embracing gestures, a
hand laid familiarly on Gamacho's shoulder; a hand
waved formally towards the little black-coated person
of Seflor Fuentes, advocate and politician and a true
friend of the people. The vivas of those nearest to the
orator bursting out suddenly propagated themselves ir-
regularly to the confines of the crowd, like flames run-
ning over dry grass, and expired in the opening of the
streets. In the intervals, over the swarming Plaza
brooded a heavy silence, in which the mouth of the
orator went on opening and shutting, and detached
phrases — "The happiness of the people," "Sons of
the country," "The entire world, el mundo entiero^* —
reached even the packed steps of the cathedral with
a feeble clear ring, thin as the buzzing of a mosquito.
But the orator struck his breast; he seemed to prance
between his two supporters. It was the supreme eflFort
of his peroration. Then the two smaller figures dis-
appeared from the public gaze and the enormous Ga-
macho, left alone, advanced, raising his hat high above
his head. Then he covered himself proudly and yelled
out, "Ciudadanos!" A dull roar greeted Senor Ga-
macho, ex-pedlar of the Campo, Commandante of the
National Guards.

Upstairs Pedrito Montero walked about rapidly from
one wrecked room of the Intendencia to another, snarl-
ing incessantly —

" What stupidity ! What destruction ! "

Senor Fuentes, following, would relax his taciturn
disposition to murmur —

"It is all the work of Gamacho and his Nationals;"
and then, inclining his head on his left shoulder,
would press together his lips so firmly that a little
hollow would appear at each corner. He had his
nomination for Political Chief of the town in- his

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 391

pocket, and was all impatience to enter upon his
functions.

In the long audience room, with its tall mirrors all
starred by stones, the hangings torn down and the
canopy over the platform at the upper end pulled to
pieces, the vast, deep muttering of the crowd and the
howling voice of Gamacho speaking just below reached
them through the shutters as they stood idly in dimness
and desolation.

"The brute!" observed his Excellency Don Pedro
Montero through clenched teeth. **We must contrive
as quickly as possible to send him and his Nationals out
there to fight Hernandez."

The new Gefe Politico only jerked his head sideways,
and took a puff at his cigarette in sign of his agreement
with this method for ridding the town of Gamacho and
his inconvenient rabble.

Pedrito Montero looked with disgust at the absolutely
bare floor, and at the belt of heavy gilt picture-frames
running roimd the room, out of which the remnants of
torn and slashed canvases fluttered like dingy rags.

"We are not barbarians," he said.

This was what said his Excellency, the popular
Pedrito, the guerrillero skilled in the art of laying am-
bushes, charged by his brother at his own demand
with the organization of Sulaco on democractic prin-
ciples. The night before, during the consultation
with his partisans, who had come out to meet him in
Rincon, he had opened his intentions to Sefior Fuentes —

"We shall organize a popular vote, by yes or no, con-
fiding the destinies of our beloved country to the wisdom
and valiance of my heroic brother, the invincible gen-
eral. A plebiscite. Do you understand?"

And Seiior Fuentes, puflBng out his leathery cheeks*
had incHned his head slightly to the left, letting a thin.

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392 NOSTROMO

bluish jet of smoke escape through his pursed lips. He
had understood.

His Excellency was exasperated at the devastation.
Not a single chair, table, sofa, 6taghe or console had
been left in the state rooms of the Intendencia. His
Excellency, though twitching all over with rage, was
restrained from bursting into violence by a sense of his
remoteness and isolation. His heroic brother was very
far away. Meantime, how was he going to take his
siesta? He had expected to find comfort and luxury
in the Intendencia after a year of hard camp life, ending
with the hardships and privations of the daring dash
upon Sulaco — upon the province which was worth
more in wealth and influence than all the rest of the
Republic's territory. He would get even with Ga-
macho by-and-by. And Seflor Gamacho's oration, de-
lectable to popular ears, went on in the heat and glare
of the Plaza like the uncouth bowlings of an inferior
sort of devil cast into a white-hot furnace. Every
moment he had to wipe his streaming face with his bare
fore-arm; he had flung off his coat, and had turned up
the sleeves of his shirt high above the elbows; but he
kept on his head the large cocked hat with white plumes.
His ingenuousness cherished this sign of his rank as
Commandante of the National Guards. Approving and
grave murmurs greeted his periods. His opinion was
that war should be declared at once against France,
England, Germany, and the United States, who, by
introducing railways, mining enterprises, colonization,
and under such other shallow pretences, aimed at rob-
bing poor people of their lands, and with the help of
these Goths and paralytics, the aristocrats would con-
vert them into toiling and miserable slaves. And
the leperos, flinging about the corners of their dirty
white m^^ntas, yelled thw approbatipo. General

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 393

Montero, Gamacho howled with conviction, was the
only man equal to the patriotic task. They assented
to that, too.

The morning was wearing on; there were already signs
of disruption, ciurents and eddies in the crowd. Some
were seeking the shade of the walls and under the trees
of the Alameda. Horsemen spurred through, shouting;
groups of sombreros set level on heads against the ver-
tical sun were drifting away into the streets, where the
open doors of pulperias revealed an enticing gloom re-
sounding with the gentle tinkling of guitars. The Na-
tional Guards were thinking of siesta, and the eloquence
of Gamacho, their chief, was exhausted. Later on,
when, in the cooler hours of the afternoon, they tried
to assemble again for fm-ther consideration of public
affairs, detachments of Montero's cavalry camped on
the Alameda charged them without parley, at speed,
with long lances levelled at their flying backs as far as
the ends of the streets. The National Guards of
Sulaco were surprised by this proceeding. But they
were not indignant. No Costaguanero had ever
learned to question the eccentricities of a military force.
Ttey were part of the natural order of things. This must
be, they concluded, some kind of administrative meas-
ure, no doubt. But the motive of it escaped their
imaided intelligence, and their chief and orator, Ga-
macho, Commandante of the National Guard, was lying
drunk and asleep in the bosom of his family. His bare
feet were upturned in the shadows repulsively, in the
manner of a corpse. His eloquent mouth had dropped
open. His youngest daughter, scratching her head with
one hand, with the other waved a green bough over his
scorched and peeling face.

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CHAPTER SIX

The declining sun had shifted the shadows from west
to east amongst the houses of the town. It had shifted
them upon the whole extent of the immense Campo,
with the white walls of its haciendas on the knolls
dominating the green distances; with its grass-thatched
ranchos crouching in the folds of ground by the banks
of streams; with the dark islands of clustered trees on a
clear sea of grass, and the precipitous range of the
Cordillera, immense and motionless, emerging from the
billows of the lower forests like the barren coast of a
land of giants. The sunset rays striking the snow-slope
of Higuerota from afar gave it an air of rosy youth,
N^ while the serrated mass of distant peaks remained black,
, as if calcined in the fiery radiance. The imdulating
^surface of the forests seemed powdered with pale gold
dust; and away there, beyond Rincon, hidden from
the town by two wooded spurs, the rocks of the San
Tome gorge, with the flat wall of the moimtain itself
crowned by gigantic ferns, took on warm tones of brown *
and yellow, with red rusty streaks, and the dark green
clumps of bushes rooted in crevices. From the plain
the stamp sheds and the houses of the mine appeared
dark and small, high up, like the nests of birds clustered
on the ledges of a cliff. The zigzag paths resembled
faint tracings scratched on the wall of a cyclopean
blockhouse. To the two sereiios of the mine on
patrol duty, strolling, carbine in hand, and watchful
eyes, in the shade of the trees lining the stream near
the bridge, Don Pepe, descending the path from

S94

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 395

the upper plateau, appeared no bigger than a large
beetle.

With his air of aimless, insect-like going to and fro
upon the face of the rock, Don Pepe's figure kept on
descending steadily, and, when near the bottom, sank
at last behind the roofs of store-houses, forges, and
workshops. For a time the pair of serefios strolled
back and forth before the bridge, on which they had
stopped a horseman holding a large white envelope in
his hand. Then Don Pepe, emerging in the village
street from amongst the houses, not a stone's throw from
the frontier bridge, approached, striding in wide dark
trousers tucked into boots, a white linen jacket, sabre
at his side, and revolver at his belt. In this disturbed
time nothing could find the Senor Gobemador with
his boots off, as the saying is.

At a slight nod from one of the serefios, the man, a
messenger from the town, dismounted, and crossed the
bridge, leading his horse by the bridle.

Don Pepe received the letter from his other hand,
slapped his left side and his hips in succession, feeling
for his spectacle case. After settling the heavy silver-
moimted affair astride his nose, and adjusting it care-
fully behind his ears, he opened the envelope, holding-
'it up at about a foot in front of his eyes. The paper he
pulled out contained some three lines of writing. He
looked at them for a long time. His grey moustache
moved slightly up and down, and the wrinkles, radiating
at the corners of his eyes, ran together. He nodded
serenely. ^^Bueno^ he said. "There is no answer."

Then, in his quiet, kindly way, he engaged in a cau-
tious conversation with the man, who was willing to talk
cheerily, as if something lucky had happened to him
recently. He had seen from a distance Sotillo's in-
fantry camped along the shore of the harbour on each

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396 NOSTROMO

side of the Custom House. They had done no damage
to the buildings. The foreigners of the railway re-
mained shut up within the yards. They were no longer
anxious to shoot poor people. He cursed the foreigners;
then he reported Montero's entry and the rumours of
the town. The poor were going to be made rich now.
That was very good. More he did not know, and,
breaking into propitiatory smiles, he intimated that he
was himgry and thirsty. The old major directed him to
go to the alcalde of the first village. The man rode oflP,
and Don Pepe, striding slowly in the direction of a little
wooden belfry, looked over a hedge into a little garden,
and saw Father Roman sitting in a white hammock slung
between two orange trees in front of the presbytery.

An enormous tamarind shaded with its dark foliage
the whole white framehouse. A young Indian girl with
long hair, big eyes, and small hands and feet, carried out
a wooden chair, while a thin old woman, crabbed and
vigilant, watched her all the time from the verandah.

Don Pepe sat down in the chair and lighted a cigar;
the priest drew in an immense quantity of snuff out
of the hollow of his palm. On his reddish-brown
face, worn, hollowed as if crumbled, the eyes, fresh
and candid, sparkled like two black diamonds.

Don Pepe, in a mild and humorous voice, informed
Father Roman that Pedrito Montero, by the hand of
Seiior Fuentes, had asked him on what terms he would
surrender the mine in proper working order to a legally
constituted commission of patriotic citizens, escorted
by a small military force. The priest cast his eyes up
to heaven. However, Don Pepe continued, the mozo
who brought the letter said that Don Carlos Gould
was alive, and so far unmolested.

Father Roman expressed in a few words his thankful*
ness at hearing of the Sefior Administrador's safety.

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 897

The hour of oration had gone by in the silvery ring-
ing of a bell in the little belfry. The belt of forest
closing the entrance of the valley stood like a screen
between the low sun and the street of ±he village. At
the other end of the rocky gorge, between the walls of
basalt and granite, a forest-clad moimtain, hiding all
the range from the San Tome dwellers, rose steeply,
lighted up and leafy to the very top. Three small rosy
clouds hung motionless overhead in the great depth
of blue. Knots of people sat in the street between the
wattled huts. Before the casa of the alcalde, the fore-
men of the night-shift, already assembled to lead their
men, squatted on the groimd in a circle of leather skull-
caps, and, bowing their bronze backs, were passing
round the gourd of mate. The mozo from the town,
having fastened his horse to a wooden post before
the door, was telling them the news of Sulaco as the
blackened gourd of the decoction passed from hand to
hand. The grave alcalde himself, in a white waistcloth
and a flowered chintz gown with sleeves, open wide upon
his naked stout person with an effect of a gaudy bathing
robe, stood by, wearing a rough beaver hat at the back /
of his head, and grasping a tall staff with a silver knoo
in his hand. These insignia of his dignity had been
conferred upon him by the Administration of the mine,
the fountain of honour, of prosperity, and peace. He
had been one of the first immigrants into this valley;
his sons and sons-in-law worked within the mountain
which seemed with its treasiu^es to pour down the
thimdering ore shoots of the upper mesa, the gifts of
well-being, security, and justice upon the toilers. He
listened to the news from the town with curiosity
and indifference, as if concerning another world than
his own. And it was true that they appeared to
him so. In a very few years the sense of belong'

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398 NOSTROMO

ing to a powerful organization had been develoi>ed
in these harassed, half-wild Indians. They were proud
of, and attached to, the mine. It had secured their
confidence and belief. They invested it with a protect-
ing and invincible virtue as though it were a fetish
made by their own hands, for they were ignorant, and
in other respects did not differ appreciably from the
rest of mankind which puts infinite trust in its own
creations. It never entered the alcalde's head that
the mine could fail in its protection and force. Politics
were good enough for the people of the town and the
Campo. His yellow, round face, with wide nostrils,
and motionless in expression, resembled a fierce full
moon. He listened to the excited vapourings of the
mozo without misgivings, without surprise, without
any active sentiment whatever.

Padre Roman sat dejectedly balancing himself, his
feet just touching the groimd, his hands gripping the
edge of the hammock. With less confidence, but as
ignorant as his flock, he asked the major what did he
think was going to happen now.

Don Pepe, bolt upright in the chair, folded his hands
peacefully on the hilt of his sword, standing perpendicu-
lar between his thighs, and answered that he did not
know. The mine could be defended against any force
likely to be sent to take possession. On the other hand,
from the arid character of the valley, when the regular
suppKes from the Campo had been cut off, the popula-
tion of the three villages could be starved into submis-
sion. Don Pepe exposed these contingencies with
serenity to Father Roman, who, as an old campaigner,
was able to imderstand the reasoning of a military man.
They talked with simplicity and directness. Father
Roman was saddened at the idea of his flock being
scattered or else enslaved. He had no illusions as to

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 390

their fate, not from penetration, but from long ex-
perience of political atrocities, which seemed to him
fatal and mia voidable in the life of a State. The work-
ing of the usual public institutions presented itself to
him most distinctly as a series of calamities overtaking,
private individuals and flowing logically from each other!
through hate, revenge, folly, and rapacity, as though'
they had been part of a divine dispensation. Father
Roman's clear-sightedness was served by an iminformed
intelligence; but his heart, preserving its tenderness
amongst scenes of carnage, spoliation, and violence,
abhorred these calamities the more as his association
with the victims was closer. He entertained towards
the Indians of the valley feelings of paternal scorn.
He had been marrying, baptizing, confessing, absolving,
and burying the workers of the San Tome mine with
dignity and imction for five years or more; and he be-
lieved in the sacredness of these ministrations, which
made them his own in a spiritual sense. They were
dear to his sacerdotal supremacy. Mrs. Gould's earn-
est interest in the concerns of these people enhanced
their importance in the priest's eyes, because it really
augmented his own. When talking over with her the
innumerable Marias and Brigidas of the villages, he felt
his own humamty expand. Padre Roman was incap-
able of fanaticism to an almost reprehensible degree.
The English senora was evidently a heretic; but at the
same time she seemed to him wonderful and angelic.
Whenever that confused state of his feelings occurred
to him, while strolling, for instance, his breviary under
his arm, in the wide shade of the tamarind, he would
stop short to inhale with a strong snuffling noise a large
quantity of snuff, and shake his head profoundly. At
the thought of what might befall the illustrious sefiora
presently, he became gradually overcome with dismay.

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400 NOSTROMO

He voiced it in an agitated murmur. Even Don Pepe
lost his serenity for a moment. He leaned forward
stiffly.

"Listen, Padre. The very fact that those thieving
macaques in Sulaco are trying to find out the price of my
honour proves that Senor Don Carlos and all in the Casa
Gould are safe. As to my honour, that also is safe, as
every man, woman, and child knows. But the negro
Liberals who have snatched the town by surprise do not
know that. Bueno. Let them sit and wait. While
they wait they can do no harm."

And he regained his composure. He regained it
easily, because whatever happened his honour of an old
officer of Paez was safe. He had promised Charles
Gould that at the approach of an armed force he would
defend the gorge just long enough to give himself time
to destroy scientifically the whole plant, buildings, and
workshops of the mine with heavy charges of dynamite;
block with ruins the main timnel, break down the path-
ways, blow up the dam of the water-power, shatter
the famous Gould Concession into fragments, flying
sky high out of a horrified world. The mine had got
hold of Charles Gould with a grip as deadly as ever
it had laid upon his father. But this extreme resolution
had seemed to Don Pepe the most natural thing in the
world. His measures had been taken with judgment.
Everything was prepared with a careful completeness.
And Don P6pe folded his hands pacifically on his
sword hilt, and nodded at the priest. In his excite-
ment, Father Roman had flung snujBf in handfuls at his
face, and, all besmeared with tobacco, round-eyed, and
beside himself, had got out of the hammock to walk
about, uttering exclamations.

Don Pepe stroked his grey and pendant moustache,
whose fine ends hung far below the clean-cut line

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 401

of his jaw, and spoke with a conscious pride in his
reputation,

"So, Padre, I don't know what will happen. But I
know that as long as I am here Don Carlos can speak to
that macaque, Pedrito Montero, and threaten the de-
struction of the mine with perfect assurance that he will
be taken seriously. For people know me."

He began to turn the cigar in his lips a little nervously,
and went on —

"But that is talk — ^good for the politicos. I am a
military man. I do not know what may happen. But
I know what ought to be done — ^the mine should march
upon the town with guns, axes, knives tied up to sticks
— por Dios. That is what should be done. Only "

His folded hands twitched on the hilt. The cigar
turned faster in the comer of his lips.

"And who should lead but I? Unfortunately — ob-
serve — ^I have given my word of honour to Don Carlos
not to let the mine fall into the hands of these thieves.
In war — ^you know this. Padre — ^the fate of battles is
uncertain, and whom could I leave here to act for me
in case of defeat? The explosives are ready. But it
would require a man of high honour, of intelligence, of
judgment, of courage, to carry out the prepared de-
struction. Somebody I can trust with my honour as I
can trust myself. Another old oflBcer of Paez, for in-
stance. Or — or — ^perhaps one of Paez's old chaplains
would do,"

He got up, long, lank, upright, hard, with his martial
moustache and the bony structure of his face, from which
the glance of the sunken eyes seemed to transfix the
priest, who stood still, an empty wooden snujBf-box held
upside down in his hand, and glared back, speechless,
at the governor of the mine.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

At about that time, in the Intendencia of Sulaco,
Charles Gould was assuring Pedrito Montero, who had
sent a request for his presence there, that he would never
let the mine pass out of his hands for the profit of a
Government who had robbed him of it. The Gould
Concession could not be resumed. His father had not
desired it. The son would never surrender it. He
would never surrender it alive. And once dead, where
was the power capable of resuscitating such an enter-
prise in all its vigour and wealth out of the ashes and
ruin of destruction? There was no such power in the
country. And where was the skill and capital abroad
that would condescend to touch such an ill-omened
corpse? Charles Gould talked in the impassive tone
which had for many years served to ccmceal his anger
and contempt. He suffered. He was disgusted with
what he had to say. It was too much like heroics. In
/him the strictly practical instinct was in profound dis-
I cord with the almost mystic view he took of his right.
The Gould Concession was symbolic of abstract justice.
Let the heavens fall. But since the San Tome mine
had developed into world-wide fame his threat had
enough force and effectiveness to reach the rudimentary
intelligence of Pedro Montero, wrapped up as it was
in the futilities of historical anecdotes. The Gould
Concession was a serious asset in the country's finance,
and, what was more, in the private budgets of many
officials as well. It was traditional. It was known.
It was said. It was credible. Every Minister of

4oe

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 403

Interior drew a salary from the San Tome mine. It
was natural. And Pedrito intended to be Minister
of the Interior and President of the Council in his
brother's Government. The Due de Momy had oc-
cupied those high posts during the Second French
Empire with conspicuous advantage to himself.

A table, a chair, a wooden bedstead had been procured
for His Excellency, who, after a short siesta, rendered
absolutely necessary by the labours and the pomps of his
entry into Sulaco, had been getting hold of the adminis-
trative machine by making appointments, giving orders,
and signing proclamations. Alone with Charles Gould
in the audience room. His Excellency managed with his
well-known skill to conceal his annoyance and consterna-
tion. He had begun at first to talk loftily of confiscation,
but the want of all proper feeling and mobility in the
Senor Administrador's features ended by affecting
adversely his power of masterful expression. Charles
Gould had repeated: "The Government can certainly
bring about the destruction of the San Tome mine if it
likes; but without me it can do nothing else." It was
an alarming pronouncement, and well calculated tor
hurt the sensibilities of a politician whose mind is bent
upon the spoils of victory. And Charles Gould said
also that the destruction of the San Tome mine would
cause the ruin of other undertakings, the withdrawal
of European capital, the withholding, most probably,
of the last instalment of the foreign loan. That stony
fiend of a man said all these things (which were ac-
cessible to His Excellency's intelligence) in a cold-
blooded manner which made one shudder.

A long course of reading historical works, light and
gossipy in tone, carried out in garrets of Parisian hotels,
sprawling on an untidy bed, to the neglect of his duties,
menial or otherwise, had affected the manners of Pedro

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404 NOSTROMO

Montero. Had he seen around him the splendour of
the old Intendeneia, the magnificent hangings, the gilt
furniture ranged along the walls; had he stood upon. a
dais on a noble square of red carpet, he would have prob-
ably been very dangerous from a sense of success and
elevation. But in this sacked and devastated residence,
with the three pieces of common furniture huddled up
in the middle of the vast apartment, Pedrito's imagina-
tion was subdued by a feeling of insecurity and
impermanence. That feeling and the firm attitude
of Charles Gould who had not once, so far, pronoimced
the word "Excellency," diminished him in his own eyes.
He assumed the tone of an enlightened man of the world,
and begged Charles Gould to dismiss from his mind
every cause for alarm. He was now conversing, he
reminded him, with the brother of the master of the
country, charged with a reorganizing mission. The
trusted brother of the master of the country, he re-
peated. Nothing was further from the thoughts of
that wise and patriotic hero than ideas of destruction.
"I entreat you, Don Carlos, not to give way to your
anti-democratic prejudices," he cried, in a burst of
condescending effusion.

Pedrito Montero surprised one at first sight by the
vast development of his bald forehead, a shiny yellow
expanse between the crinkly coal-black tufts of hair
without any lustre, the engaging form of his mouth,
and an unexpectedly cultivated voice. But his eyes,
very glistening as if freshly painted on each side of his
hooked nose, had a round, hopeless, birdlike stare when
opened fuUy^ Now, however, he narrowed them agree-
ably, throwing his square chin up and speaking with
closed teeth slightly through the nose, with what he
imagined to be the manner of a grand seigneur.

In that attitude, he declared suddenly that the highest

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 405

expression of democracy was Csesarism: the imperial
rule based upon the direct popular vote. Csesarism
was conservative. It was strong. It recognized the
legitimate needs of democracy which requires orders,
titles, and distinctions. They would be showered
upon deserving men. Caesarism was peace. It was
progressive. It secured the prosperity of a country.
Pedrito Montero was carried away. Look at what the
Second Empire had done for France. It was a regime
which delighted to honour men of Don Carlos*s stamp.
The Second Empire fell, but that was because its chief
was devoid of that military genius which had raised
General Montero to the pinnacle of fame and glory.
Pedrito elevated his hand jerkily to help the idea of |
pinnacle, of fame. "We shall have many talks yet.
We shall understand each other thoroughly, Don
Carlos!" he cried in a tone of fellowship. Republican-
ism had done its work. Imperial democracy was the
power of the future. Pedrito, the guerrillero, showing
his hand, lowered his voice forcibly. A man singled
out by his fellow-citizens for the honourable nickname
of El Rey de Sulaco could not but receive a full recogni-
tion from an imperial democracy as a great captain
of industry and a person of weighty counsel, whose
popular designation would be soon replaced by a more
solid title. "Eh, Don Carlos? No! What do you
say? Conde de Sulaco — Eh? — or marquis . . . "

He ceased. The air was cool on the Plaza, where a pa-
trol of cavalry rode round and round without penetrat-
ing into the streets, which resoimded with shouts and
the strumming of guitars issuing from the open doors
of pulperias. The orders were not to interfere with the
enjoyments of the people. And above the roofs, next
to the perpendicular lines of the cathedral towers the
snowy curve of Higuerota blocked a large space of

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406 NOSTROMO

darkening blue sky before the windows of the Inten-
dencia. After a time Pedrito Montero, thrusting his
hand in the bosom of his coat, bowed his head with
slow dignity. The audience was over.

Charles Gould on going out passed his hand over his
forehead as if to disperse the mists of an oppressive
dream, whose grotesque extravagance leaves behind a
I subtle sense of bodily danger and intellectual decay.
In the passages and on the staircases of the old palace
Montero's troopers loimged about insolently, smoking
and making way for no one; the clanking of sabres
and spurs resoimded all over the building. Three silent
groups of civilians in severe black waited in the main
gallery, formal and helpless, a little huddled up, each
keeping apart from the others, as if in the exercise of a
public duty they had been overcome by a desire to shun
the notice of every eye. These were the deputations
waiting for their audience. The one from the Provin-
cial Assembly, more restless and imeasy in its corporate
expression, was overtopped by the big face of Don Juste
Lopez, soft and white, with prominent eyehds and
wreathed in impenetrable solemnity as if in a dense
cloud. The President of the Provincial Assembly,
coming bravely to save the last shred of parliamentary
institutions (on the English model), averted his eyes
from the Administrador of the San Tome mine as a
dignified rebuke of his little faith in that only saving
principle.

The mournful severity of that reproof did not aflfec^
Charles Gould, but he was sensible to the glances of the
others directed upon him without reproach, as if only to
read their own fate upon his face. All of thfem had
talked, shouted, and declaimed in the great sala of the
Casa Gould. The feeling of compassion for those men,
struck with a strange impotence in the toils of moral

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 407

degradation, did not induce him to make a sign. He
suffered from his fellowship in evil with them too much.
He crossed the Plaza unmolested. The Amarilla Club
was full of festive ragamuflSns. Their frowsy heads
protruded from every window, and from within came
drunken shouts, the thumping of feet, and the twanging
of harps. Broken bottles strewed the pavement below.
Charles Gould found the doctor still in his house.

Dr. Monygham came away from the crack in the
shutter through which he had been watching the street.

"Ah! You are back at last!" he said in a tone of
relief. "I have been telling Mrs. Gould that you were
perfectly safe, but I was not by any means certain that
the fellow would have let you go."

"Neither was I," confessed Charles Gould, laying his
hat on the table.

"You will have to take action."

The silence of Charles Gould seemed to admit that
this was the only course. This was as far as Charles
Gould was accustomed to go towards expressing his
intentions.

"I hope you did not warn Montero of what you mean
to do," the doctor said, anxiously.

"I tried to make him see that the existence of the
mine was bound up with my personal safety," continued
Charles Gould, looking away from the doctor, and fixing
his eyes upon the water-colour sketch upon the wall.

"He believed you?" the doctor asked, eagerly.

"God knows!" said Charles Gould. "I owed it to
my wife to say that much. He is well enough informed.
He knows that I have Don Pepe there. Fuentes must
have told him. They know that the old major is per-
fectly capable of blowing up the San Tome mine with-
out hesitation or compunction. Had it not been for
that I don't think I'd have left the Intendencia a free

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408 NOSTROMO

man. He would blow everything up from loyalty
and from hate — ^from hate of these Liberals, as they
call themselves. Liberals! The words one knows so
well have a nightmarish meaning in this country.
Liberty, democracy, patriotism, government — all of
them have a flavour of folly and murder. Haven't
they, doctor? ... I alone can restrain Don Pej>e.
If they were to — ^to do away with me, nothing could
prevent him."

"They will try to tamper with him," the doctor
suggested, thoughtfully.

"It is very possible," Charles Gould said very low,
as if speaking to himself, and still gazing at the sketch
of the San Tome gorge upon the wall. "Yes, I expect
they will try that." Charles Gould looked for the first
time at the doctor. " It would give me time," he added.

"Exactly," said Dr. Monygham, suppressing his ex-
citement. " Especially if Don Pepe behaves diplomatic-
ally. Why shouldn't he give them some hope of success?
Eh? Otherwise you wouldn't gain so much time.
Couldn't he be instructed to "

Charles Gould, looking at the doctor steadily, shook
his head, but the doctor continued with a certain
amount of fire —

"Yes, to enter into negotiations for the surrender of
the mme. It is a good notion. You would mature
your plan. Of course, I don't ask what it is. I don't
want to know. I would refuse to listen to you if you
tried to tell me. I am not fit for confidences."

"What nonsense!" muttered Charles Gould, with
displeasure.

He disapproved of the doctor's sensitiveness about
that far-off episode of his life. So much memory
shocked Charles Gould. It was like morbidness. And
again he shook his head. He refused to tamper with

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 409

the open rectitude of Don Pep6's conduct, both from
taste and from poKcy. Instructions would have to be
either verbal or in writing. In either case they ran the
risk of being intercepted. It was by no means certain
that a messenger could reach the mine; and, besides, ^-
there was no one to send. It was on the tip of Charles's
tongue to say that only the late Capataz de Cargadores V
could have been employed with some chance of success
and the certitude of discretion. But he did not say
that. He pointed out to the doctor that it would have
been bad poKcy. Directly Don Pepe let it be supposed
that he could be bought over, the Administrador's
personal safety and the safety of his friends would be-
come endangered. For there would be then no reason
for moderation. The incorruptibility of Don Pepe
was the essential and restraining fact. The doctor hung
his head and admitted that in a way it was so.

He couldn't deny to himself that the reasoning was
sound enough. Don Pepe's usefulness consisted in his
unstained character. As to his own usefulness, he
reflected bitterly it was also his own character. He
declared to Charles Gould that he had the means of
keeping Sotillo from joining his forces with Montero,
at least for the present.

"If you had had all this silver here," the doctor said,
"or even if it had been known to be at the mine, you
could have bribed Sotillo to throw off his recent Mon-
terism. You could have induced him either to go away
in his steamer or even to join you/'

"Certainly not that last," Charles Gould declared,
firmly. "What could one do with a man like that,
afterwards — tell me, doctor? The silver is gone, and
I am glad of it. It would have been an immediate
and strong temptation. The scramble for that visible
plunder would have precipitated a disastrous ending.

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410 NOSTROMO

1 would have had to defend it, too. I am glad we've
removed it — even if it is lost. It would have been a
danger and a curse."

"Perhaps he is right/' the doctor, an hour later, said
hurriedly to Mrs. Gould, whom he met in the corridor.
"The thing is done, and the shadow of the treasure may-
do just as well as the substance. Let me try to serve you
to the whole extent of my evil reputation. I am off now
to play my game of betrayal with Sotillo, and keep him
off the town."

She put out both her hands impulsively, " Dr. Monyg-
ham, you are running a terrible risk," she whispered,
averting from his face her eyes, full of tears, for a short
glance at the door of her husband's room. She pressed
both his hands, and the doctor stood as if rooted to the
spot, looking down at her, and trying to twist his lips
into a smile.

"Oh, I know you will defend my memory," he uttered
at last, and ran tottering down the stairs across the
patio, and out of the house. In the street he kept up
a great pace with his smart hobbling walk, a case of in-
struments under his arm. He was known for being loco.
Nobody interfered with him. From under the seaward
gate, across the dusty, arid plain, interspersed with low
busfies, he saw, more than a mile away, the ugly enorm-
ity of the Custom House, and the two or three other
buildings which at that time constituted the seaport
of Sulaco. Far away to the south groves of palm trees
edged the curve of the harbour shore. The distant
peaks of the Cordillera had lost their identity of clear-
cut shapesi in the steadily deepening blue of the eastern
sky. The doctor walked briskly. A darkling shadow
seemed to fall upon him from the zenith. The sun
had set. For a time the snows of Iliguerota continued
to glow with the reflected glory of the west. The

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 411

doctor, holding a straight course for the Custom House,
appeared lonely, hopping amongst the dark bushes like
a tall bird with a broken wing.

Tints of purple, gold, and crimson were mirrored in
the clear water of the harbour. A long tongue of land,
straight as a wall, with the grass-grown ruins of the
fort making a sort of rounded green mound, plainly
visible from the inner shore, closed its circuit; while
beyond the Placid Gulf repeated those splendours of •
colouring on a greater scale and with a more sombre
magnificence. The great mass of cloud filling the head
of the gulf had long red smears amongst its convolutejj^
folds of grey and black, as of a floating mantle stained
with blood. The three Isabels, overshadowed and
clear cut in a great smoothness confounding the sea
and sky, appeared suspended, purple-black, in the air.
The little wavelets seemed to be tossing tiny red sparks
upon the sandy beaches. The glassy bands of water
along the horizon gave out a fiery red glow, as if fire
and water had been mingled together in the vast bed
of the ocean.

At last the conflagration of sea and sky, lying em-
braced and still in a flaming contact upon the edge of
the world, went out. The red sparks in the water A
vanished together with the stains of blood in the black
mantle draping the sombre head of the Placid Gulf; a
sudden breeze sprang up and died out after rustling
heavily the growth of bushes on the ruined earthwork
of the fort, Nostromo woke up from a fourteen hours*
sleep, and arose full length from his lair in the long grass.
He stood knee deep amongst the whispering imdulations /
of the green blades with the lost air of a man just born v
into the world. Handsome, robust, and supple, he
threw back his head, flung his arms open, and stretched
himself with a slow twist of the waist and a leisurely

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418 NOSTROMO

growling yawn of white teeth, as natural and free from
evil in the moment of waking as a magnificent and
unconscious wild beast. Then, in the suddenly steadied
glance fixed upon nothing from under a thoughtful
frown, appeared the man.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

After landing from his swim Nostromo had scram-
bled up, all dripping, into the main quadrangle of the
old fort; and there, amongst ruined bits of walls and
rotting remnants of roofs and sheds, he had slept
the day through. He had slept in the shadow of the
mountains, in the white blaze of noon, in the stillness
and solitude of that overgrown piece of land between
the oval of the harbour and the spacious semi-circle
of the gulf. He lay as if dead. A rey-zamiu'o, appear-
ing like a tiny blad^ speck in the blue, stooped, circling
prudently with a stealthiness of flight startling in a bird
of that great size. The shadow of his pearly-white
body, of his black-tipped wings, fell on ihe grass no
more silently than he alighted himself on a hillock of
rubbish within three yards of that man, lying as still
as a corpse. The bird stretched his bare neck, craned
his bald head, loathsome in the brilliance of varied
colouring, with an air of voracious anxiety towards the
promising stillness of that prostrate body. Then,
sinking his head deeply into his soft plumage, he settled
himself to wait. The first thing upon which Nos-
tromo's eyes fell on waking was this patient watcher for
the signs of death and corruption. When the man got
up the vultiu'e hopped away in great, side-long, flutter-
ing jimips. He lingered for a while, morose and reluct-
ant, before he rose, circling noiselessly with a sinister
droop of beak and claws.

Long after he had vanished, Nostromo, lifting his
eyes up to the sky, muttered, "I am not dead yet."

413

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414 NOSTROMO

The Capataz of the Sulaco Caxgadores had lived in
splendour and publicity up to the very moment, as it
were, when he took charge of the lighter containing the
treasure of silver ingots.

The last act he had performed in Sulaco was in com-
plete harmony with his vanity, and as such perfectly
genuine. He had given his last dollar to an old woman
moaning with the grief and fatigue of a dismal search
under the arch of the ancient gate. Performed in
obscurity and without witnesses, it had still the char-
acteristics of splendour and publicity, and was in strict
keeping with his reputation. But this awakening in
solitude, except for the watchful vulture, amongst
the ruins of the fort, had no such characteristics. His
first confused feeling was exactly this — that it was not
in keeping. It was more like the end of things. The
\ [ uecessity of living concealed somehow, for God knows
how long, which assailed him on his return to conscious-
ness, made everything that had gone before for years
appear vain and fooKsh, like a flattering dream come
. suddenly to an end.

~ He climbed the crumbling slope of the rampart, and,
putting aside the bushes, looked upon the harbour. He
saw a couple of ships at anchor upon the sheet of water
reflecting the last gleams of light, and Sotillo's steamer
moored to the jetty. And behind the pale long front of
the Custom House, there appeared the extent of the
town like a grove of thick timber on the plain with a
gateway in front, and the cupolas, towers, and miradors
rising above the trees, all dark, as if surrendered already
to the night. The thought that it was no longer open
to him to ride through the streets, recognized by every-
one, great and Kttle, as he used to do every evening
on his way to play monte in the posada of the Mexican
Domingo; or to sit in the place of honour, listening to

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 415

songs and looking at dances, made it appear to him as
a town that had no existence.

For a long time he gazed on, then let the parted
bushes spring back, and, crossing over to the other side
of the fort, surveyed the vaster emptiness of the great
gulf. The Isabels stood out heavily ujwn the narrowing
long band of red in the west, which gleamed low between
their black shapes, and the Capataz thought of Decoud
alone there with the treasure. That man was the only
one who cared whether he fell into the hands of the
Monterists or not, the Capataz reflected bitterly. And
that merely would be an anxiety for his own sake. As
to the rest, they neither knew nor cared. What he
had heard Giorgio Viola say once was very true.
Kings, ministers, aristocrats, the rich in general, kept
the people in poverty and subjection; they kept them
as they kept dogs, to fight and hunt for their service.

The darkness of the sky had descended to the line of
the horizon, enveloping the whole gulf, the islets, and
the lover of Antonia alone with the treasure on the
Great Isabel. The Capataz, turning his back on these
fthings invisible and existing, sat down and took his
face between his fists. He felt the pinch of poverty
for the first time in his life. To find himself without
money after a run of bad luck at monte in the low,
smoky room of Domingo's posada, where the fraternity
of Cargadores gambled, sang, and danced of an evening;
to remain with empty pockets after a burst of public
generosity to some peyne d^oro girl or other (for whom
he did not care), had none of the hiuniliation of destitu-
tion. He remained rich in glory and reputation. But
since it was no longer possible for him to parade the
streets of the town, and be hailed with respect in the
usual haunts of his leisure, this sailor felt himself desti-
tute indeed.

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416 NOSTROMO

His mouth was dry. It was dry with heavy sleep and
extremely anxious thinking, as it had never been dry
before. It may be said that Nostromo tasted the dust
and ashes of the fruit of life into which he had bitten
deeply in his hunger for praise. Without removing
his head from between his fists, he tried to spit before
him — "Tfui" — and muttered a curse upon the selfish-
ness of all the rich people.

Since everything seemed lost in Sulaco (and that was
the feeling of his waking), the idea of leaving the coun-
try altogether had presented itself to Nostromo. At
that thought he had seen, like the beginning of another
dream, a vision of steep and tideless shores, with dark
pines on the heights and white houses low down near
a very blue sea. He saw the quays of a big port,
where the coasting feluccas, with their lateen sails
outspread like motionless wings, enter gliding silently
between the end of long moles of squared blocks that
project angularly towards each other, hugging a cluster
of shipping to the superb bosom of a hill covered with
palaces. He remembered these sights not without
some filial emotion, though he had been habitually and
severely beaten as a boy on one of these feluccas by a
short-necked, shaven Genoese, with a deUberate and
distrustful manner, who (he firmly believed) had cheated
him out of his orphan's inheritance. But it is merci-
fully decreed that the evils of the past should appear
but faintly in retrospect. Under the sense of loneliness,
abandonment, and failure, the idea of retiu'n to these
things appeared tolerable. But, what? Return? With
bare feet and head, with one check shirt and a pair of
cotton calzoneros for all worldly possessions?

The renowned Capataz, his elbows on his knees and a
fist dug into each cheek, laughed with self-derision, as
he had spat with disgust, straight out before him into

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^HE LIGHTHOUSE 417

the night. The confused and intimate impressions of
universal dissolution which beset a subjective nature at
any strong check to its ruling passion had a bitterness
approaching that of death itself. He was simple. He
was as ready to become the prey of any belief, supersti-
tion, or desire as a child.

The facts of his situation he could appreciate like a
man with a distinct experience of the country. He saw
them clearly. He was as if sobered after a long bout
of intoxication. His fidelity had been taken advantage
of. He had persuaded the body of Cargadores to side
with the Blancos against the rest of the people; he had
had interviews with Don Jose; he had been made use
of by Father Corbelan for negotiating with Hernan-
dez; it was known that Don Martin Decoud had ad-
mitted him to a sort of intimacy, so that he had been
free of the oflfices of the Porvenir. All these things had
flattered him in the usual way. What did he care about
their politics? Nothing at all. And at the end of it all
— Nostromo here and Nostromo there — where is Nos-
tromo? Nostromo can do this and that — work all day
and ride all night — ^behold! he found himself a marked
Ribierist for any sort of vengeance Gamacho, for in-
stance, would choose to take, now the Montero party,
had, after all, mastered the town. The Europeans
had given up; the Caballeros had given up. Don
Martin had indeed explained it was only temporary —
that he was going to bring Barrios to the rescue. Where
was that now — with Don Martin (whose ironic manner
of talk had always made the Capataz feel vaguely un-
easy) stranded on the Great Isabel? Everybody had
given up. Even Don Carlos had given up. The
hurried removal of the treasure out to sea meant nothing
else than that. The Capataz de Cargadores, on a re-
vulsion of sub jectiveness, exasperated almost to insanity.

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418 NOSTROMa

beheld all his world without faith and courage. He had
been betrayed!

With the boundless shadows of the sea behind him,
out of his silence and immobility, facing the lofty shapes
of the lower peaks crowded around the white, misty
sheen of Higuerota, Nostromo laughed aloud again,
sprang abruptly to his feet, and stood still. He must
go. But where?

"There is no mistake. They keep us and encourage
us as if we were dogs born to fight and hunt for them.
The vecchio is right," he said, slowly and scathingly.
He remembered old Giorgio taking his pipe out of his
mouth to throw these words over his shoulder at the
cafe, full of engine-drivers and fitters from the railway
workshops. This image fixed his wavering purpose.
He would try to find old Giorgio if he could. God
knows what might have happened to him! He made
a few steps, then stopped again and shook his head.
To the left and right, in front and behind him, the
scrubby bush rustled mysteriously in the darkness.

"Teresa was right, too," he added in a low tone
touched with awe. He wondered whether she was
dead in her anger with him or still alive. As if in answer
to this thought, half of remorse and half of hope, with a
soft flutter and oblique flight, a big owl, whose appalling
cry: "Ya-acabo! Ya-acabo! — ^it is finished; it is fin-
ished" — ^announces calamity and death in the popular
belief, drifted vaguely like a large dark ball across his
path. In the downfall of all the realities that made his
force, he was affected by the superstition, and shuddered
slightly. Signora Teresa must have died, then. It
could mean nothing else. The cry of the ill-omened
bird, the first sound he was to hear on his return, was a
fitting welcome for his betrayed individuality. The
unseen powers which he had offended by refuiring

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 419

to bring a priest to a dying woman were lifting up
their voice against him. She was dead. With admir-
able and human consistency he referred everything to
himself. She had been a woman of good counsel al-
ways. And the bereaved old Giorgio remained stunned
by his loss just as he was likely to require the advice
of his sagacity. The blow would render the dreamy
old man quite stupid for a time.

As to Captain Mitchell, Nostromo, after the manner
of trusted subordinates, considered him as a person
fitted by education perhaps to sign papers in an oflSce
and to give orders, but otherwise of no use whatever,
and something of a fool. The necessity of winding
roimd his Kttle finger, almost daily, the pompous and
testy self-importance of the old seaman had grown
irksome with use to Nostromo. At first it had given
him an inward satisfaction. But the necessity of
overcoming small obstacles becomes wearisome to a
self-confident personality as much by the certitude
of success as by the monotony of effort. He mistrusted
his superior's proneness to fussy action. That old
Englishman had no judgment, he said to himself. It
was useless to suppose that, acquainted with the true
state of the case, he would keep it to himself. He
would talk of doing impracticable things. Nostromo
feared him as one would fear saddling one's self
with some persistent worry. He had no discretion.
He would betray the treasure. And Nostromo had
made up his mind that the treasure should not be
betrayed.

The word had fixed itself tenaciously in his intelli-
gence. His imagination had seized upon the clear and
simple notion of betrayal to account for the dazed feel-f
ing of enlightenment as to being done for, of having
inadvertently gone out of his existence on an issue in

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420 NOSTROMO

which his personality had not been taken into account.
A man betrayed is a man destroyed. Signora Teresa
(may God have her soul!) had been right. He had
never been taken into account. Destroyed! Her
white form sitting up bowed in bed, the falling black
hair, the wide-browed suflFering face raised to him, the
anger of her denunciations appeared to him now ma-
jestic with the awfulness of inspiration and of death.
For it was not for nothing that the evil bird had uttered
its lamentable shriek over his head. She was dead —
may God have her soul!

Sharing in the anti-priestly freethought of the masses,
his mind used the pious formula from the superficial
force of habit, but with a deep-seated sincerity. The
popular mind is incapable of scepticism; and that in-
capacity delivers their helpless strength to the wiles of
swindlers and to the pitiless enthusiasms of leaders
inspired by visions of a high destiny. She was dead*
But would God consent to receive her soul? She had
died without confession or absolution, because he had
not been willing to spare her another moment of his
time. His scorn of priests as priests remained; but
after all, it was impossible to know whether what they
aflBrmed was not true. Power, punishment, pardon,
are simple and credible notions. The magnificent
Capataz de Cargadores, deprived of certain simple
realities, such as the admiration of women, the adula-
tion of men, the admired publicity of his life, was ready
to feel the burden of sacrilegious guilt descend upon his
* shoulders.

Bareheaded, in a thin shirt and drawers, he felt the
lingering warmth of the fine sand under the soles of his
feet. The narrow strand gleamed far ahead in a long
curve, defining the outline of this wild side of the
harbour. He flitted along the shore like a pursued

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 421

shadow between the sombre palm-groves and the sheet
of water lying as still as death on his right hand. He
strode with headlong haste in the silence and solitude
as though he had forgotten all prudence and caution.
But he knew that on this side of the water he ran no
risk of discovery. The only inhabitant was a lonely,
silent, apathetic Indian in charge of the palmarias,
who brought sometimes a load of cocoanuts to the town
for sale. He lived without a woman in an open shed,
with a perpetual fire of dry sticks smouldering near
an old canoe lying bottom up on the beach. He could
be easily avoided.

The barking of the dogs about that man's ranche was
the first thing that checked his speed. He had forgotten
the dogs. He swerved sharply, and plunged into the
palm-grove, as into a wilderness of columns in an im-
mense hall, whose dense obscurity seemed to whisper
and rustle faintly high above his head. He traversed
it, entered a ravine, and climbed to the top of a steep
ridge free of trees and bushes.

Prom there, open and vague in the starlight, he saw
the plain between the town and the harbour. In the
woods above some night-bird made a strange drimaming
noise. Below beyond the palmaria on the beach, the
Indian's dogs continued to bark uproariously. He
wondered what had upset them so much, and, peering
down from his elevation, was surprised to detect un-
accountable movements of the ground below, as if
several oblong pieces of the plain had been in motion.
Those dark, shifting patches, alternately catching and
eluding the eye, altered their place always away from
the harboiu*, with a suggestion of consecutive order
and purpose. A light dawned upon him. It was a
colunm of infantry on a night march towards the higher
broken country at the foot of the hills. But he was

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422 NOSTROMO

too much in the dark about everything for wonder
and speculation.

The plain had resumed its shadowy immobility.
He descended the ridge and found himself in the open
solitude, between the harbour and the town. Its spa-
ciousness, extended indefinitely by an effect of ob-
scurity, rendered more sensible his profound isolation.
His pace became slower. No one waited for him; no
one thought of him; no one expected or wished his re-
turn. "Betrayed! Betrayed!" he muttered to him-
self. No one cared. He might have been drowned
by this time. No one would have cared — ^imless, per-
haps, the children, he thought to himself. But they
were with the English signora, and not thinking of him
at all.

He wavered in his purpose of making straight for the
Casa Viola. To what end? What could he expect
there? His life seemed to fail him in all its details, even
to the scornful reproaches of Teresa. He was aware
painfully of his reluctance. Was it that remorse which
she had prophesied with, what he saw now, was her
last breath?

Meantime, he had deviated from the straight course,
inclining by a sort of instinct to the right, towards the
jetty and the harbour, the scene of his daily labours.
The great length of the Custom House loomed up all at
once like the wall of a factory. Not a soul challenged
his approach, and his curiosity became excited as he
passed cautiously towards the front by the unexpected
sight of two lighted windows.

They had the fascination of a lonely vigil kept by
some mysterious watcher up there, those two windows
shining dimly upon the harbour in the whole vast extent
of the abandoned building. The solitude could almost
be felt. A strong smell of wood smoke himg about in

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a thin haze, which was faintly perceptible to his raised
eyes against the glitter of the stars. As he advanced
in the profound silence, the shrilling of innumerable
cicalas in the dry grass seemed positively deafening to
his strained ears. Slowly, step by step, he found him-
self in the great hall, sombre and full of acrid smoke.

A fire built against the staircase had burnt down
impotently to a low heap of embers. The hard wood
had failed to catch; only a few steps at the bottom
smouldered, with a creeping glow of sparks defining
their charred edges. At the top he saw a streak of
light from an open door. It fell upon the vast landing,
all foggy with a slow drift of smoke. That was the
room. He climbed the stairs, then checked himself,
because he had seen within the shadow of a man cast
upon one of the walls. It was a shapeless, high-
shouldered shadow of somebody standing still, with
lowered head, out of his line of sight. The Capataz, re-
membering that he was totally unarmed, stepped aside,
and, effacing himself upright in a dark comer, waited
with his eyes fixed on the door.

The whole enormous ruined barrack of a place, un-
finished, without ceilings under its lofty roof, was per-
vaded by the smoke swaying to and fro in the faint cross
draughts playing in the obscurity of many lofty rooms
and bamlike passages. Once one of the swinging
shutters came against the wall with a single sharp crack,
as if pushed by an impatient hand. A piece of paper
scurried out from somewhere, rustling along the land-
ing. The man, whoever he was, did not darken the
lighted doorway. Twice the Capataz, advancing a
couple of steps out of his comer, craned his neck in
the hope of catching sight of what he could be at, so
quietly, in there. But every time he saw only the dis-
torted shadow of broad shoulders and bowed head.

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424 NOSTROMO

He was doing apparently nutuing, and stirred not
from the si>ot, as though he were meditating — or, per-
haps, reading a paper. And not a sound issued from
the room.

y Once more the Capataz stepped back. He wondered
who it was — some Monterist? But he dreaded to show
himself. To discover his presence on shore, unless
after many days, would, he believed,' endanger the
treasure. With his own knowledge possessing his whole
soul, it seemed impossible that anybody in Sulaco
should fail to jump at the right surmise. After a
couple of weeks or so it would be diflFerent. Who
could tell he had not returned overland from some
\port beyond the liniits of the Republic? The existence
of the treasure confused his thoughts with a peculiar
sort of anxiety, as though his life had become bound
up with it. It rendered him timorous for a momtot
before that enigmatic, lighted door. Devil take the
fellow! He did not want to see him. There would be
nothing to learn from his face, known or unknown.
He was a fool to waste his time there in waiting.

Less than five minutes after entering the place the
Capataz began his retreat. He got away down the
stairs with perfect success, gave one upward look over
his shoulder at the light on the landing, and ran stealth-
ily across the hall. But at the very moment he was turn-
ing out of the great door, with his mind fixed upK)n es-
caping the notice of the man upstairs, somebody he had
not heard coming briskly along the front ran full into
him. Both muttered a stifled exclamation of surprise,
and leaped back and stood still, each indistinct to the
other. Nostromo was silent. The other man spoke
first, in an amazed and deadened tone.

^^Whoareyou?''

Already Nostromo had seemed to recognize Dr.

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 425

Monygham. He had no doubt now. He hesitated
the space of a second. The idea of bolting without a
word presented itself to his mind. No use! An in-
explicable repugnance to pronounce the name by which
he was known kept him silent a little longer. At last
he said in a low voice —

"A Cargador."

He walked up to the other. Dr. Monygham had
received a shock. He flimg his arms up and cried out
his wonder aloud, forgetting himself before the marvel
of this meeting. Nostromo angrily warned him to mod-
erate his voice. The Custom House was not so deserted
as it looked. There was somebody in the lighted room
above.

There is no more evanescent quality in an accom-
plished fact than its wonderfulness. Solicited inces-
santly by the considerations affecting its fears and
desires, the human mind turns naturally away from the
marvellous side of events. And it was in- the most
natural way possible that the doctor asked this man
whom only two minutes before he believed to have
been drowned in the gulf —

"You have seen somebody up there? Have you?"

"No, I have not seen him."

"Then how do you know?"

"I was rimning away from his shadow when we
met."

"His shadow?"

"Yes. His shadow in the lighted room," said Nos-
tromo, in a contemptuous tone. Leaning back with
folded arms at the foot of the immense building, he
dropped his head, biting his lips slightly, and not look-
ing at the doctor. "Now," he thought to himself, "he
will begin asking me about the treasure."

But the doctor's thoughts were concerned with an

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426 NOSTROMO

event not as marvellous as Nostrotno^s appearance,
but in itself much less clear. Why had Sotillo taken
himself oflF with his whole command with this sudden-
ness and secrecy? What did this move portend?
However, it dawned upon the doctor that the man
upstairs was one of the oflScers left behind by the dis-
appointed colonel to communicate with him.

"I believe he is waiting for me,'* he said.

"It is possible."

"I must see. Do not go away yet, Capataz.''

"Go away where?" muttered Nostromo.

Already the doctor had left him. He remained
leaning against the wall, staring at the dark water of
the harbour; the shrilling of cicalas filled his ears. An
invincible vagueness coming over his thoughts took
from them all power to determine his will.

"Capataz! Capataz!" the doctor's voice called
urgently from above.

The sense of betrayal and ruin floated upon his som-
bre indifference as upon a sluggish sea of pitch. But he
stepped out from under the wall, and, looking up, saw
Dr. Monygham leaning out of a lighted window.

"Come up and see what Sotillo has done. You need
not fear the man up here."

He answered by a slight, bitter laugh. Fear a man!
The Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores fear a man!
It angered him that anybody should suggest such a
thing. It angered him to be disarmed and skidking
and in danger because of the accursed treasure, which
was of so little account to the people who had tied it
^^^ round his neck. He could not shake off the worry of
^it. To Nostromo the doctor represented all these
people. . . . And he had never even asked after
it. Not a word of inquiry about the most desperate
imdertaking of his life.

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Thinking these thoughts, Nostromo passed again
through the cavernous hall, where the smoke was con-
siderably thinned, and went up the stairs, not so warm
to his feet now, towards the streak of light at the top.
The doctor apj>eared in it for a moment, agitated and
impatient.

" Come up ! Come up ! "

At the moment of crossing the doorway the Capataz
experienced a shock of surprise. The man had not
moved. He saw his shadow in the same place. He
started, then stepped in with a feeling of being about to
solve a mystery.

It was very simple. For an infinitesimal fraction of
a second, against the light of two flaring and guttering
candles, through a blue, pimgent, thin haze which made
his eyes smart, he saw the man standing, as he had
imagined him, with his back to the door, casting an
enormous and distorted shadow upon the wall. Swifter
than a flash of lightning followed the impression of his
constrained, toppling attitude — the shoulders project-
ing forward, the head simk low upon the breast. Then
he distinguished the arms behind his back, and wrenched
so terribly that the two clenched fists, lashed together,
had been forced up higher than the shoulder-blades.
From there his eyes traced in one instantaneous glance
the hide rope going upwards from the tied wrists over
a heavy beam and down to a staple in the wall. He
did not want to look at the rigid legs, at the feet hanging
down nervelessly, with their bare toes some six inches
above the floor, to know that the man had been given
the estrapade till he had swooned. His first impulse
was to dash forward and sever the rope at one blow.
He felt for his knife. He had no knife — not even a
knife. He stood quivering, and the doctor, perched
on the edge of the table, facing thoughtfully the cruel

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428 NOSTROMO

and lamentable sight, his chin in his hand, uttered,
without stirring —

"Tortured — and shot dead through the breast —
getting cold."

This information calmed the Capataz. One of the
candles flickering in the socket went out. "Who did
this?" he asked.

" Sotillo, I tell you. Who else? Tortured — of course.
But why shot?" The doctor looked fixedly at Nos-
tromo, who shrugged his shoulders slightly. "And
mark, shot suddenly, on impulse. It is evident. I
wish I had his secret."

Nostromo had advanced, and stooped slightly to
look. "I seem to have seen that face somewhere," he
muttered. "Who is he?"

The doctor turned his eyes upon him again. "I
may yet come to envying his fate. What do you
think of that, Capataz, eh?"

But Nostromo did not even hear these words. Seizing
the remaining light, he thrust it imder the drooping
head. The doctor sat oblivious, with a lost gaze.
Then the heavy iron candlestick, as if struck out of
Nostromo's hand, clattered on the floor.

"Hullo!" exclaimed the doctor, looking up with a
start. He could hear the Capataz stagger against
the table and gasp. In the sudden extinction of the
light within, the dead blackness sealing the window-
frames became alive with stars to his sight.

"Of course, of course," the doctor muttered to himself
in English. " Enough to make him jump out of his skin."

Nostromo's heart seemed to force itself into his throat.
His head swam. Hirsch! The man was Hirsch!
He held on tight to the edge of the table.

" But he was hiding in the lighter," he almost shoutedo
His voice fell. "In the lighter, and — ^and "

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 429

"And Sotillo brought him in," said the doctor. "He
is no more startling to you than you were to me. What
I want to know is how he induced some compassionate
soul to shoot him."

"So Sotillo knows " began Nostromo, in a more

equable voice.

"Everything!" interrupted the doctor.

The Capataz was heard striking the table with his
fist. "Everything? What are you saying, there?
Everything? Know everything? It is impossible!
Everything?"

"Of course. What do you mean by impossible? I
tell you I have heard this Hirsch questioned last nighty
here, in this very room. He knew your name, Decoud's
name, and all about the loading of the silver. . . .
The lighter was cut in two. He was grovelling in ab-
ject terror before Sotillo, but he remembered that much.
What do you want more? He knew least about him-
self. They foimd him clinging to their anchor. He
must have caught at it just as the lighter went to the
bottom."

"Went to the bottom?" repeated Nostromo, slowly.
"Sotillo believes that? Buervor

The doctor, a little impatiently, was unable to
imagine what else could anybody believe. Yes, Sotillo
believed that the lighter was sunk, and the Capataz
de Cargadores, together with Martin Decoud and j>er-
haps one or two other political fugitives, had been
drowned.

"I told you well, sefior doctor," remarked Nostromo
at that point, "that Sotillo did not know everything."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"He did not know I was not dead."

"Neither did we."

"And you did not care — ^none of you caballeros on

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430 NOSTROMO

the wharf — once you got off a man of flesh and blood
like yourselves on a fooFs business that could not end
well."

''You forget, Capataz, I was not on the wharf. And I
did not think well of the business. So you need not
taunt me; I tell you what, man, we had but little leis-
ure to think of the dead. Death stands near behind
us all. You were gone."

"I went, indeed!" broke in Nostromo. "And for the
sake of what — ^tell me?"

"Ah ! that is your own affair," the doctor said, roughly.

Do not ask me."

Their flowing murmurs paused in the dark. Perched
on the edge of the table with slightly averted faces,
they felt their shoulders touch, and their eyes remained
directed towards an upright shape nearly lost in the
obscurity of the inner part of the room, that with pro-
jecting head and shoulders, in ghastly immobility,
seemed intent on catching every word.

^^Muy hien! " Nostromo muttered at last. "So be it.
Teresa was right. It is my own affair."

"Teresa is dead," remarked the doctor, absently,
while his mind followed a new line of thought suggested
by what might have been called Nostromo's return to
life. "She died, the poor woman."

"Without a priest?" the Capataz asked, anxiously.

"What a question! Who could have got a priest for
her last night?"

"May God keep her soul!" ejaculated Nostromo,
with a gloomy and hopeless fervour which had no time
to surprise Dr. Monygham, before, reverting to their
previous conversation, he continued in a sinister tone,
"Si, seiior doctor. As you were saying, it is my own
affair. A very desperate affair."

"There are no two men in this part of the world that

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could have saved themselves by swimming as you have
done/' the doctor said, admiringly.

And again there was silence between those two men.
They were both reflecting, and the diversity of their
natures made their thoughts bom from their meeting
swing afar from each other. The doctor, impelled to
risky action by his loyalty to the Goulds, wondered
with thankfulness at the chain of accident which had
brought that man back where he would be of the great-
est use in the work of saving the San Tome mine. The
doctor was loyal to the mine. It presented itself to
his fifty-years' old eyes in the shape of a little woman in a
soft dress with a long train, with a head attractively
overweighted by a great mass of fair hair and the deli-
cate preciousness of her inner worth, partaking of a
gem and a flower, revealed in every attitude of her
person. As the dangers thickened round the San Tome
mine this illusion acquired force, permanency, ant)

► authority. It claimed him at last! This claim, ex-
alted by a spiritual detachment from the usual sanctions
of hope and reward, made Dr. Monygham's thinking, i
acting, individuality extremely dangerous to himself/
and to others, all his scruples vanishing in the proud
feeling that his devotion was the only thing that stood
between an admirable woman and a frightful disaster.
It was a sort of intoxication which made him utterly

^ indifferent to Decoud's fate, but left his wits perfectly
clear for the appreciation of Decoud's political idea.
It was a good idea — and Barrios was the only instrument
of its realization. The doctor's soul, withered and

^ shnmk by the shame of a moral disgrace, became im-

^ placable in the expansion of its tenderness. Nostromo's
return was providential. He did not think of him
humanely, as of a fellow-creature just escaped from the
jaws of death. The Capataz for him was the only

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432 NOSTROMO

possible messenger to Cayta. The very man. The
doctor's misanthropic mistrust of mankind (the bitterer
because based on personal failure) did not lift liim
sufficiently above common weaknesses. He was under
the spell of an established reputation. Trumpeted
by Captain Mitchell, grown in repetition, and fixed
in general assent, Nostromo's faithfulness had never
been questioned by Dr. Monygham as a fact. It was
not likely to be questioned now he stood in desperate
need of it himself. Dr. Monygham was human; he
accepted the popular conception of the Capataz's
incorruptibility simply because no word iyr fact had
ever contradicted a mere affirmation. It seemed to be
a part of the man, like his whiskers or his teeth. It
was impossible to conceive him otherwise. The ques-
tion was whether he would consent to go on such a
dangerous and desperate errand. The doctor was ob-
servant enough to have become aware from the first
of something peculiar in the man's temper. He was
no doubt sore about the loss of the silver.

"It will be necessary to take him into my fullest con-
fidence," he said to himself, with a certain acuteness of
insight into the nature he had to deal with.

On Nostromo's side the silence had been full of black
irresolution, anger, and mistrust. He was the first to
break it, however.

"The swimming was no great matter," he said. "It
is what went before — and what comes after that "

He did not quite finish what he meant to say, break-
ing oflf short, as though his thought had butted against
a soUd obstacle. The doctor's mind pursued its own
schemes with Machiavellian subtlety. He said as
sympathetically as he was able —

"It is unfortunate, Capataz. But no one would
think of blaming you. Very unfortimate. To begin

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 433

with, the treasure ought never to have left the mountain.

But it was Decoud who however, he is dead. There

is no need to talk of him."

"No," assented Nostromo, as the doctor paused,
** there is no need to talk of dead men. But I am not
dead yet."

"You are all right. Only a man of your intrepidity
could have saved himself."

In this Dr. Monygham was sincere. He esteemed
highly the intrepidity of that man, whom he valued
but little, being disillusioned as to mankind in general,
because of the particular instance in which his own man-
hood had failed. Having had to encounter single-
handed during his period of eclipse many physical
dangers, he was well aware of the most dangerous
element common to them all: of the crushing, paralyzing i
sense of human littleness, which is what really defeats
a man struggling with natural forces, alone, far froml
the eyes of his fellows. He was eminently fit to appre-
ciate the mental image he made for himself of the
Capataz, after hours of tension and anxiety, precipi-
tated suddenly into an abyss of waters and darkness,
without earth or sky, and confronting it not only with
an undismayed mind, but with sensible success. Of
course, the man was an incomparable swimmer, that
was known, but the doctor judged that this instance
testified to a still greater intrepidity of spirit. It was
pleasing to him; he augured well from it for the success
of the arduous mission with which he meant to entrust
the Capataz so marvellously restored to usefulness.
And in a tone vaguely gratified, he observed —

"It must have been terribly dark!"

"It was the worst darkness of the Golfo," the Capataz y
assented, briefly. He was mollified by what seemed a-«^
sign of some faint interest in such things as had befallen

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434 NOSTROMO

him, and dropped a few descriptive phrases with an
affected and curt nonchalance. At that moment he
felt communicative. He expected the continuance
of that interest which, whether accepted or rejected,
would have restored to him his personaKty — ^the only
thing lost in that desperate affair. But the doctor,
engrossed by a desperate adventiu'e of his own, was
terrible in the pursuit of his idea. He let an exclama-
tion of regret escape him.

"I could almost wish you had shouted and shown a
light."

This unexpected utterance astoimded the Capataz
by its character of cold-blooded atrocity. It was as
much as to say, "I wish you had shown yourself a
coward; I wish you had had your throat cut for your
pains." Naturally he referred it to himself, whereas it
related only to the silver, being uttered simply and with
many mental reservations. Surprise and rage rendered
him speechless, and the doctor pursued, practically
unheard by Nostromo, whose stirred blood was beating
violently in his ears.

"For I am convinced Sotillo in possession of the
silver would have turned short round and made for some
small port abroad. Economically it would have been
wasteful, but still less wasteful than having it sunk.
It was the next best thing to having it at hand in some
safe place, and using part of it to buy up Sotillo. But
I doubt whether Don Carlos would have ever made up
his mind to it. He is not fit for Costaguana, and that
is a fact, Capataz."

The Capataz had mastered the fury that was like a
tempest in his ears in time to hear the name of Don
Carlos. He seemed to have come out of it a changed
man — a man who spoke thoughtfully in a soft and even
voice.

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'*And would Don Carlos have been content if I had
surrendered this treasure?"

"I should not wonder if they were all of that way of
thinking now," the doctor said, grimly. "I was never
consulted. Decoud had it his' own why. Their eyes
are opened by this time, I should think. I for one
know that if that silver turned up this moment miracu-
lously ashore I would give it to Sotillo. And, as things
stand, I would be approved."

"Turned up miraculously," repeated the Capataz
very low; then raised his voice. "That, senor, would
be a greater miracle than any saint could perform."

"I believe you, Capataz," said the doctor, drily.

He went on to develop his view of Sotillo's dangerous
influence upon the situation. And the Capataz, listen-
ing as if in a dream, felt himself of as little account as
the indistinct, motionless shape of the dead man whom
he saw upright under the beam, with his air of listening
also, disregarded, forgotten, like a terrible example of
neglect.

"Was it for an unconsidered and foolish whim that
they came to me, then?" he interrupted suddenly.
" Had I not done enough for them to be of some account, y
por Dios ? Is it that the hombresfinos — the gentlemen
— need not think as long as there is a man of the people
ready to risk his body and soul? Or, perhaps, we have
no souls — ^like dogs?"

"There was Decoud, too, with his plan," the doctor
reminded him again.

"Si! And the rich man in San Francisco who had
something to do with that treasure, too — what do I
know? No! I have heard too many things. It seems
to me that everything is permitted to the rich."

"I understand, Capataz," the doctor began.

"What Capataz?" broke in Nostromo, in a forcible

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436 NOSTROMO

but even voice. "The Capataz is undone, destroyed.
There is no Capataz. Oh, no ! You will find the Capa-
taz no more."

"Come, this is childish!'* remonstrated the doctor;
and the other calmed down suddenly.

"I have been indeed like a little child," he muttered.

And as his eyes met again the shape of the murdered
man suspended in his awful immobility, which seemed
the uncomplaining immobility of attention, he asked,
wondering gently —

"Why did Sotillo give the estrapade to this pitiful
wretch? Do you know? No torture could have been
worse than his fear. Killing I can understand. His
anguish was intolerable to behold. But why should he
torment him like this? He could tell no more."

"No; he could tell nothing more. Any sane man
would have seen that. He had told him everything.
But I tell you what it is, Capataz. Sotillo would not
believe what he was told. Not everything."

"What is it he would not believe? I cannot under-
stand."

"I can, because I have seen the man. He refuses to
believe that the treasure is lost."

"What?" the Capataz cried out in a discomposed
tone.

"That startles you— eh?"

"Am I to understand, seiior," Nostromo went on in a
deliberate and, as it were, watchful tone, "that Sotillo
thinks the treasure has been saved by some means?"

"No! no! That would be impossible," said the
doctor, with conviction; and Nostromo emitted a grunt
in the dark. "That would be impossible. He thinks
that the silver was no longer in the lighter when she was
sunk. He has convinced himself that the whole show
of getting it away to sea is a mere sham got up to receive

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Gamacho and his Nationals, Pedrito Montero, Seiior
Fuentes, our new Gef e Politico, and himself, too. Only,
he says, he is no such fool."

"But he is devoid of sense. He is the greatest im-
becile that ever called himself a colonel in this country
of evil," growled Nostromo.

"He is no more unreasonable than many sensible
men," said the doctor. "He has convinced himself
that the treasure can be found because he desires pas-
sionately to possess himself of it. And he is also afraid
of his officers turning upon him and going over to
Pedrito, whom he has not the courage either to fight
or trust. Do you see that, Capataz? He need fear no
desertion as long as some hope remains of that enormous
plunder turning up. I have made it my business to
keep this very hope up."

"You have?" the Capataz de Cargadores repeated
cautiously. "Well, that is wonderful. And how long
do you think you are going to keep it up? "

"As long as I can."

"What does that mean?"

"I can tell you exactly. As long as I live," the doc-
tor retorted in a stubborn voice. Then, in a few words,
he described the story of his arrest and the circumstances
of his release. "I was going back to that silly scoundrel
when we met," he concluded.

Nostromo had listened with profound attention.
"You have made up your mind, then, to a speedy
death," he muttered through his clenched teeth.

"Perhaps, my illustrious Capataz," the doctor said,
testily. "You are not the only one here who can look an
ugly death in the face."

'*No doubt," mumbled Nostromo, loud enough to be
overheard. "There may be even more than two fools
in this place. Who knows? "

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438 NOSTROMO

"And that is my affair," said the doctor, curtly.

"As taking out the accursed silver to sea was my
affair," retorted Nostromo. "I see. Bueno! Each
of us has his reasons. But you were the last man I
conversed with before I started, and you talked to me
as if I were a fool."

Nostromo had a great distaste for the doctor's
sardonic treatment of his great reputation. Decoud's
faintly ironic recognition used to make him imeasy;
but the familiarity of a man like Don Martin was
flattering, whereas the doctor was a nobody. He
could remember him a penniless outcast, slinking about
the streets of Sulaco, without a single friend or acquaint-
ance, till Don Carlos Gould took him into the service
of the mine.

"You may be very wise," he went on, thoughtfully,
staring into the obscurity of the room, pervaded by the
gruesome enigma of the tortured and murdered Hirsch.
"But I am not such a fool as when I started. I have
learned one thing since, and that is that you are a
dangerous man."

Dr. Monygham was too startled to do more than
exclaim —

"What is it you say?"

"If he could speak he would say the same thing,"
pursued Nostromo, with a nod of his shadowy head sil-
houetted against the starht window.

"I do not imderstand you," said Dr. Monygham,
faintly.

"No? Perhaps, if you had not confirmed Sotillo in
his madness, he would have been in no haste to give the
estrapade to that miserable Hirsch."

The doctor started at the suggestion. But his de-
votion, absorbing all his sensibilities, had left his heart
steeled against remorse and pity. Still, for complete

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relief, he felt the necessity of repelling it loudly and
contemptuously.

"Bah! You dare to tell me that, with a man like
Sotillo. I confess I did not give a thought to Hirsch.
If I had it would have been useless. Anybody can see
that the luckless wretch was doomed from the moment
he caught hold of the anchor. He was doomed, I tell
you! Just as I myself am doomed — most probably."

This is what Dr. Monygham said in answer to Nos-
tromo's remark, which was plausible enough to prick
his conscience. He was not a callous man. But the
necessity, the magnitude, the importance of the task
he had taken upon himself dwarfed all merely humane
considerations. He had undertaken it in a fanatical
spirit. He did not like it. To lie, to deceive, to cir-
cumvent even the basest of mankind was odious to him.
It was odious to him V y training, instinct, and tradition.
To do these things in the character of a traitor was ab-
horrent to his nature and terrible to his feelings. He
had made that sacrifice in a spirit of abasement. He .
had said to himself bitterly, "I am the only one fit for
that dirty work.'' And he believed this. He was not
subtle. His simplicity was such that, though he had
no sort of heroic idea of seeking death, the risk, deadly
enough, to which he exposed himself, had a sustaining
and comforting effect. To that spiritual state the
fate of Hirsch presented itself as part of the general
atrocity of things. He considered that episode prac-
tically. What did it mean? Was it a sign of some dan-
gerous change in Sotillo's delusion? That the man
should have been killed like this was what the doctor
could not imderstand.

"Yes. But why shot?" he murmured to himself.

Nostromo kept very still.

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CHAPTER NINE

Distracted between doubts and hopes, dismayed by
the sound of bells pealing out the arrival of Pedrito
Montero, Sotillo had spent the morning in battling
with his thoughts; a contest to which he was unequal,
from the vacuity of his mind and the violence of hi3
passions. Disappointment, greed, anger, and fear
made a tumult, in the colonel's breast louder than the
din of bells in the town. Nothing he had planned had
come to pass. Neither Sulaco nor the silver of the
mine had fallen into his hands. He had performed
no military exploit to secure his position, and had ob-
tained no enormous booty to make off with. Pedrito
Montero, either as friend or foe, filled him with dread.
The sound of bells maddened him.

Imagining at first that he might be attacked at once,
he had made his battalion stand to arms on the shore.
He walked to and fro all the length of the room, stop-
ping sometimes to gnaw the finger-tips of his right hand
with a lurid sideways glare fixed on the floor; then, with
a sullen, repelling glance all round, he would resume
his tramping in savage aloofness. His hat, horsewhip,
sword, and revolver were lying on the table. His
officers, crowding the window giving the view of the
town gate, disputed amongst themselves the use of his
field-glass bought last year on long credit from Anzani.
It passed from hand to hand, and the possessor for the
time being was besieged by anxious inquiries.

"There is nothing; there is nothing to see!" he would
repeat impatiently.

440

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 441

There was nothing. And when the picket in the
bushes near the Casa Viola had been ordered to fall
back upon the main body, no stir of life appeared on the
stretch of dusty and arid land between the town and
the waters of the port. But late in the afternoon a
horseman issuing from the gate was made out riding up
fearlessly. It was an emissary from Senor Fuentes.
Being all alone he was allowed to come on. Dismount-
ing at the great door he greeted the silent bystanders
with cheery impudence, and begged to be taken up at
once to the "muy valliente" colonel.

Senor Fuentes, on entering upon his functions of Gefe
Politico, had turned his diplomatic abilities to getting
hold of the harbour as well as of the mine. The man
he pitched upon to negotiate with Sotillo was a Notary
Public, whom the revolution had found languishing in
the common jail on a charge of forging documents.
Liberated by the mob along with the other "victims
of Blanco tyranny/' he had hastened to oflfer his ser-
vices to the new Government.

He set out determined to display much zeal and
eloquence in trying to induce Sotillo to come into town
alone for a conference with Pedrito Montero. Nothing
was further from the colonel's intentions. The mere
fleeting idea of trusting himself into the famous Ped-
rito's hands had made him feel unwell several times.
It was out of the question — it was madness. And to
put himself in open hostility was madness, too. It
would render impossible a systematic search for that
treasure, for that wealth of silver which he seemed
to feel somewhere about, to scent somewhere near.

But where.'* Where? Heavens! Where? Oh! why had
lie allowed that doctor to go! Imbecile that he was.
But no! It was the only right course, he reflected dis-
tractedly, while the messenger waited downstairs chat-

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442 NOSTROMO

ting agreeably to the oflSeers. It was in that scoundrelly
doctor's true interest to return with positive information.
But what if anything stopped him? A general pro-
hibition to leave the town, for instance! There would
be patrols!

The colonel, seizing his head in his hands, turned in
his tracks as if struck with vertigo. A flash of craven
inspiration suggested to him an expedient not imknown
to European statesmen when they wish to delay a diflS-
cult negotiation. Booted and spurred, he scrambled
into the hammock with undignified haste. His hand-
some face had turned yellow with the strain of weighty
cares. The ridge of his shapely nose had grown sharp;
the audacious nostrils appeared mean and pinched.
The velvety, caressing glance of his fine eyes seemed
dead, and even decomposed; for these almond-shaped,
languishing orbs had become inappropriately bloodshot
with much sinister sleeplessness. He addressed the
surprised envoy of Sefior Fuentes in a deadened, ex-
hausted voice. It came pathetically feeble from under
a pile of ponchos, which buried his elegant person right
up to the black moustaches, imcurled, pendant, in sign
of bodily prostration and mental incapacity. Fever,
fever — a heavy fever had overtaken the "muy valliente"
colonel. A wavering wildness of expression, caused by
the passing spasms of a slight colic which had declared
itself suddenly, and the rattling teeth of repressed panic,
had a genuineness which impressed the envoy. It was a
cold fit. The colonel explained that he was imable
to think, to listen, to speak. With an appearance of
superhuman effort the colonel gasped out that he was
not in a state to return a suitable reply or to execute
any of his Excellency's orders. But to-morrow!
To-morrow ! Ah ! to-morrow ! Let his Excellency Don
Pedro be without uneasiness. The brave Esmeralda

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 443

Regiment held the harbour, held And closing his

eyes, he rolled his aching head like a half-delirious
invalid under the inquisitive stare of the envoy, who
was obliged to bend down over the hammock in order
to catch the painful and broken accents. Meantime,
Colonel Sotillo trusted that his Excellency's humanity
would permit the doctor^ the EngHsh doctor, to come
out of town with his case of foreign remedies to attend
upon him. He begged anxiously his worship the
caballero now present for the grace of looking in as he
passed the Casa Gould, and informing the English
doctor, who was probably there, that his services were
immediately required by Colonel Sotillo, lying ill of
fever in the Custom House. Immediately. Most
urgently required. Awaited with extreme impatience.
A thousand thanks. He closed his eyes wearily and
would not open them again, lying perfectly still, deaf,
dumb, insensible, overcome, vanquished, crushed, anni-
hilated by the fell disease.

But as soon as the other had shut after him the door of
the landing, the colonel leaped out with a fling of both
feet in an avalanche of woollen coverings. His spurs
having become entangled in a perfect welter of ponchos
he nearly pitched on his head, and did not recover his
balance till the middle of the room. Concealed behind
the half-closed jalousies he listened to what went on
below.

The envoy had already moimted, and turning to the
morose oflScers occupying the great doorway, took off
his hat formally.

"Caballeros," he said, in a very loud tone, "allow me
to recommend you to take great care of your colonel. It
has done me much honour and gratification to have seen
you all, a fine body of men exercising the soldierly virtue
of patience in this exposed situation, where there is

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444 NOSTROMO

much sun, and no water to speak of, while a town full
of wine and feminine charms is ready to embrace you
for the brave men you are. Caballeros, I have the
honour to salute you. There will be much dancing
to-night in Sulaco. Good-bye ! "

But he reined in his horse and inclined his head side-
ways on seeing the old major step out, very tall and
\ meagre, in a straight narrow coat coming down to his
ankles as it were the casing of the regimental colours
rolled roTiiKl their staff.

The intelligent old warrior, after enunciating in a
dogmatic tone the general proposition that the "world
was full of traitors," went on pronouncing deliberately a
panegyric upon Sotillo. He ascribed to him with leis-
urely emphasis every virtue under heaven, summing
it all up in an absurd colloquialism ciu'rent amongst
the lower class of Occidentals (especially about Esmer-
alda). "And," he concluded, with a sudden rise in the
voice, "a man of many teeth — 'homhre de muchos
dientes.' Si, senor. As to us," he pursued, portentous
and impressive, "your worship is beholding the finest
body of officers in the Republic, men unequalled for
valour and sagacity, ^y hombres de muchos dientes,^'*

"What? All of them?" inquired the disreputable
envoy of Senor Fuentes, with a faint, derisive smile.

^'Todos. Si, senor/' the major affirmed, gravely,
with conviction. "Men of many teeth."

The other wheeled his horse to face the portal re-
sembling the high gate of a dismal bam. He raised
himself in his stirrups, extended one arm. He was a
facetious scoundrel, entertaining for these stupid
Occidentals a feeling of great scorn natural in a native
from the central provinces. The folly of Esmeral-
dians especially aroused his amused contempt. He
began an oration upon Pedro Montero, keeping a solenm

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 445

countenance. He flourished his hand as if introducing
him to their notice. And when he saw every face set,
all the eyes fixed upon his lips, he began to shout a sort
of catalogue of perfections: "Generous, valorous,
affable, profound " — (he snatched off his hat enthusias-
tically) — "a statesman, an invincible chief of parti-
sans — " He dropped his voice startlingly to a deep,
hollow note — "and a dentist.'* >/

He was oflF instantly at a smart walk; the rigid strad-
dle of h:s legs, the turned-out feet, the stiff back, the
rakish slant of the sombrero above the square, motion-
less set of the shoulders expressing an infinite, awe-
inspiring impudence.

Upstairs, behind the jalousies, Sotillo did not move
for a long time. The audacity of the fellow appalled
him. What were his oflScers saying below? They were
saying nothing. Complete silence. He quaked. It was
not thus that he had imagined himself at that stage
of the expedition. He had seen himself triumphant,
unquestioned, appeased, the idol of the soldiers, weigh-
ing in secret complacency the agreeable alternatives
of power and wealth open to his choice. Alas! How
different! Distracted, restless, supine, burning with
fury, or frozen with terror, he felt a dread as fathomless
as the sea creep upon him from every side. That rogue
of a doctor had to come out with his information.
That was clear. It would be of no use to him — ^alone.
He could do nothing with it. Malediction! The doc-
tor would never come out. He was probably under
arrest already, shut up together with Don Carlos. He
laughed aloud insanely. Ha! ha! ha! ha! It was
Pedrito Montero who would get the information. Ha!
ha! ha! ha! — and the silver. Ha!

All at once, in the midst of the laugh, he became
motionless and silent as if turned into stone. He, too,.

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446 NOSTROMO.

had a prisoner. A prisoner who must, must know the
real truth. He would have to be made to speak. And
Sotillo, who all that time had not quite forgotten Hirseh,
felt an inexphcable reluctance at the notion of proceed-
ing to extremities.

He felt a reluctance — ^part of that unfathomable
dread that crept on all sides upon him. He remembered
reluctantly, too, the dilated eyes of the hide merchant,
his contortions, his loud sobs and protestations. It
was not compassion or even mere nervous sensibility.
The fact was that though Sotillo did never for a mo-
ment believe his story — ^he could not believe it; nobody
could believe such nonsense — ^yet those accents of de-
spairing truth impressed him disagreeably . They made
him feel sick. And he suspected also that the man might
have gone mad with fear. A lunatic is a hopeless sub-
ject. Bah! A pretence. Nothing but a pretence.
He would know how to deal with that.

He was working himself up to the right pitch of
ferocity. His fine eyes squinted slightly; he clapped
his hands; a bare-footed orderly appeared noiselessly,
a corporal, with his bayonet hanging on his thigh and a
stick in his hand.

The colonel gave his orders, and presently the miser-
able Hirseh, pushed in by several soldiers, found him
frowning awfully in a broad armchair, hat on head,
knees wide apart, arms akimbo, masterful, imposing,
irresistible, haughty, sublime, terrible.

Hirseh, with his arms tied behind his back, had been
bundled violently into one of the smaller rooms. For
many hours he remained apparently forgotten, stretched
lifelessly on the floor. From that solitude, full of despair
and terror, he was torn out brutally, with kicks and
blows, passive, sunk in hebetude. He listened to threats
and admonitions, and afterwards made his usual an-

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 447

swers lo questions, with his chin sunk on his breast,
his hands tied behind his back, swaying a little in front
of Sotillo, and never looking up. ^Vhen he was forced
to hold up his head, by means of a bayonet-point prod-
ding him under the chin, his eyes had a vacant, trance-
like stare, and drops of p^erspiration as big as peas were
seen hailing down the dirt, bruises, and scratches of
his white face. Then they stopped suddenly.

Sotillo looked at him in silence. ''Will you depart
from your obstinacy, you rogue.'^" he asked. Already
a rope, whose one end was fastened to Senor Hirsch's
wrists, had been thrown over a beam, and three soldiers
held the other end, waiting. He made no answer.
His heavy lower lip hung stupidly. Sotillo made a
sign. Hirsch was jerked up oflf his feet, and a yell of
despair and agony burst out in the room, filled the pass-
age of the great buildings, rent the air outside, caused
every soldier of the camp along the shore to look up
at the windows, started some of the oflScers in the hall
babbling excitedly, with shining eyes; others, setting
their lips, looked gloomily at the floor.

Sotillo, followed by the soldiers, had left the room.
The sentry on the landing presented arms. Hirsch went
on screaming all alone behind the half-closed jalousies
while the sunshine, reflected from the water of the har-
bour, made an ever-running ripple of light high up on
the wall. He screamed with uplifted eyebrows and a^
wide-open mouth — incredibly wide, black, enormous,
full of teeth — comical. -^

In the still burning air of the windless afternoon he
made the waves of his agony travel as far as the O. S. N.
Company's oflSces. Captain Mitchell on the balcony,
trying to make out what went on generally, had heard
him faintly but distinctly, and the feeble and appalling
sound lingered in his ears after he had retreated indoors

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448 NOSTROMO

with blanched cheeks. He had been driven off the
balcony several times during that afternoon.

Sotillo, irritable, moody, walked restlessly about, held
consultations with his oflScers, gave contradictory orders
in this shrill clamour pervading the whole empty edifice.
Sometimes there would be long and awful silences.
Several times he had entered the torture-chamber
where his sword, horsewhip, revolver, and field-glass
were lying on the table, to ask with forced calmness,
"Will you speak the truth now? No? I can wait.'*
But he could not afford to wait much longer. That
was just it. Every time he went in and came out with
a slam of the door, the sentry on the landing presented
arms, and got in return a black, venomous, unsteady
glance, which, in reality, saw nothing at all, being
merely the reflection of the soul within — a soul of
gloomy hatred, irresolution, avarice, and fury.

The sun had set when he went in once more. A
soldier carried in two lighted candles and slimk out,
shutting the door without noise.

"Speak, thou Jewish child of the devil! The silver!
The silver, I say! Where it it? WTiere have you
foreign rogues hidden it? Confess or "

A slight quiver passed up the taut rope from the
racked h'mbs, but the body of Senor Hirsch, enterprising
business man from Esmeralda, hung under the heavy
beam perpendicular and silent, facing the colonel
awfully. The inflow of the night air, cooled by the
snows of the Sierra, spread gradually a delicious fresh-
ness through the close heat of the room.

" Speak — thief — scoundrel — ^picaro — or "

Sotillo had seized the riding-whip, and stood with his
arm lifted up. For a word, for one little word, he felt
he would have knelt, cringed, grovelled on the floor
before the drowsy, conscious stare of those fixed eye*

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 440

balls starting out of the grimy, dishevelled head that
drooped very still with its mouth closed askew. The
colonel groimd his teeth wath rage and struck. The
rope vibrated leisurely to the blow, like the long string
of a pendulum starting from a rest. But no swinging
motion was imparted to the body of Senor Hirsch,
the well-known hide merchant on the coast. With
a convulsive effort of the twisted arms it leaped up a few
inches, curling upon itself like a fish on the end of a line.
Seiior Hirsch's head was flung back on his straining
throat; his chin trembled. For a moment the rattle
of his chattering teeth pervaded the vast, shadowy
room, where the candles made a patch of light round
the two flames burning side by side. And as Sotillo,f
staying his raised hand, waited for him to speak, with!
the sudden flash of a grin and a straining forward of the;
wrenched shoulders, he spat violently into his face.

The uplifted whip fell, and the colonel sprang back
with a low cry of dismay, as if aspersed by a jet of
deadly venom. Quick as thought he snatched up his
revolver, and fired twice. The report and the concus-
sion of the shots seemed to throw him at once from
ungovernable rage into idiotic stupor. He stood with
drooping jaw and stony eyes. What had he done,
Sangre de Dios ! What had he done? He was basely
appalled at his impulsive act, sealing for ever these lips
from which so much was to be extorted. What could
he say? How could he explain? Ideas of headlong
flight somewhere, anyv/here, passed through his mind;
even the craven and absurd notion of hiding under
the table occurred to his cowardice. It was too late;
his oflScers had rushed in tumul tuously, in a great clatter
of scabbards, clamourin,.^, vvitli astonishment and
wonder. But since they did not immediately proceed
to plunge their swords into his breast, the brazen side

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450 NOSTROMO

of his character asserted itself. Passing the sleeve
of his uniform over his face he pulled himself together.
His truculent glance turned slowly here and there,
checked the noise where it fell; and the stiff body of the
late Senor Hirsch, merchant, after swaying impercepti-
bly, made a half turn, and came to a rest in the midst
of awed murmurs and uneasy shuffling.

A voice remarked loudly, "Behold a man who will
never speak again." And another, from the back
row of faces, timid and pressing, cried out —

"Why did you kill him, mi colonel?'*

"Because he has confessed everything," answered
Sotillo, with the hardihood of desperation. He felt
himself cornered. He brazened it out on the strength
of his reputation with very fair success. His hearers
thought him very capable of such an act. They were
disposed to believe his flattering tale. There is no
credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covet-
ousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the
moral misery and the intellectual destitution of man-
kind. Ah! he had confessed everything, this frac-
tious Jew, this bribon. Good! Then he was no longer
wanted. A sudden dense guffaw was heard from the
senior captain — a, big-headed man, with little round
eyes and monstrously fat cheeks which never moved.
The old major, tall and fantastically ragged like a scare-
crow, walked roimd the body of the late Senor Hirsch,
muttering to himself with ineflFable complacency that
like this there was no need to guard against any future
treacheries of that scoundrel. The others stared, shift-
ing from foot to foot, and whispering short remarks
to each other.

Sotillo buckled on his sword and gave curt, peremp-
tory orders to hasten the retirement decided upon in the
afternoon. Sinister, impressive, his sombrero pulled

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 451

right down upon his eyebrows, he marched first through
the door m such disorder of mind that he forgot utterly
to provide for Dr. Monygham's possible return. As
the oflScers trooped out after him, one or two looked
back hastily at the late Senor Hirsch, merchant from
Esmeralda, left swinging rigidly at rest, alone with the
two burning candles. In the emptiness of the room
the biu-ly shadow of head and shoulders on the wall had
an air of life.

Below, the troops fell in silently and moved oflF by
companies without drum or trumpet. The old scare-
crow major commanded the rearguard; but the party
he left behind with orders to fire the Custom House
(and "bum the carcass of the treacherous Jew where it
hung") failed somehow in their haste to set the staircase
properly alight. The body of the late Sefior Hirsch
dwelt alone for a time in the dismal solitude of the un-
finished building, resoimding weirdly with sudden
slams and clicks of doors and latches, with rustling
scurries of torn papers, and the tremulous sighs that
at each gust of wind passed imder the high roof. The
light of the two candles burning before the perpendicu-
lar and breathless immobility of the late Seiior Hirsch
threw a gleam afar over land and water, like a signal
in the night. He remained to startle Nostromo by his
presence, and to puzzle Dr. Monygham by the mystery
of his atrocious end. y

"But why shot?" the doctor again asked himself,
audibly. This time he was answered by a dry laugh
from Nostromo.

"You seem much concerned at a very natural thing,
senor doctor. I wonder why? Iji is very likely that be-
fore long we shall all get shot one after another, if not
by Sotillo, then by Pedrito, or Fuentes, or Gamacho.
And we may even get the estrap^de, too, or worse — quien

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452 NOSTROMO

sabe? — with your pretty tale of the silver you put into
Sotillo's head."

"It was in his head already," the doctor protested.
"I only "

'* Yes. And you only nailed it there so that the devil
himself—"

"That is precisely what I meant, to do," caught up
the doctor.

"That is what you meant to do. Bueno. It is as I
say. You are a dangerous man."

Their voices, which without rising had l^een growing
quarrelsome, ceased suddenly. The late Senor Hirsch,
erect and shadowy against the stars, seemed to be wait-
ing attentive, in impartial silence.

But Dr. Monygham had no mind to quarrel with Nos-
tromo. At this supremely critical point of Sulaco's
fortunes it was borne upon him at last that this man
was really indispensable, more indispensable than ever
the infatuation of Captain Mitchell, his proud dis-
coverer, could conceive; far beyond what Decoud's
best dry raillery about "my illustrious friend, the unique
Capataz de Cargadores," had ever intended. The
fellow was unique. He was not "one in a thousand."
He was absolutely the only one. The doctor surren-
dered. There was something in the genius of that
Genoese seaman which dominated the destinies of great
enterprises and of many people, the fortunes of Charles
Gould, the fate of an admirable woman. At this last
thought the doctor had to clear his throat before he
could speak.

In a completely changed tone he pointed out to the
Capataz that, to begin with, he personally ran no great
risk. As far as everybody knew he was dead. It was
an enormous advantage. He had only to keep out
of sight in the Casa Viola, where* the old Garibaldino

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 463

was known to be alone — with his dead wife. The
servants had all run away. No one would think of
searching for him there, or anywhere else on earth,
for that matter.

"That would be very true," Nostromo spoke up,
bitterly, "if I had not met you."

For a time the doctor kept silent. "Do you mean to
say that you think I may give you away?" he asked in
an unsteady voice. "Why? Why should I do that?"

"What do I know? Why not? To gain a day per-
haps. It would take Sotillo a day to give me the estra-
pade, and try some other things perhaps, before he puts
a bullet through my heart — as he did to that poor
wretch here. Why not? "

The doctor swallowed with diflSculty. His throat
had gone dry in a moment. It was not from indigna-
tion. The doctor, pathetically enough, believed that
he had forfeited the right to be indignant with any one — I
for anything. It was simple dread. Had the feHow
heard his story by some chance? If so, there was an
end of his usefulness in that direction. The indispen-
sable man escaped his influence, because of that indeli-
ble blot which made him fit for dirty work. A feeling
as of sickness came upon the doctor. He would have
given anything to know, but he dared not clear up the
point. The fanaticism of his devotion, fed on the sense
of his abasement, hardened his heart in sadness and.
scorn.

"Why not, indeed?" he reechoed, sardonically.
*'Then the safe thing for you is to kill me on the spot.
I would defend myself. But you may just as well know
I am going about unarmed."

^'PoT DiosT' said the Capataz, passionately. "You
fine people are all alike. All dangerous. All betrayers
of the poor who are your dogs."

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;454 NOSTROMO

"You do not understand," began the doctor, slowly.

"I understand you all!" cried the other with a violent
movement, as shadowy to the doctor^s eyes as the per-
sistent immobility of the late Sefior Hirsch. "A poor
man amongst you has got to look after himself. I say
that you do not care for those that serve you. Look
at me! After all these years, suddenly, here I find
myself like one of these curs that bark outside the walls
— without a kennel or a dry bone for my teeth. Ca-
rambar' But he relented with a contemptuous fair-
ness. "Of course," he went on, quietly, "I do not sup-
pose that you would hasten to give me up to Sotillo,
for example. It is not that. It is that I am nothing!
Suddenly " He swung his arm downwards. "Noth-
ing to any one," he repeated.

The doctor breathed freely. "Listen, Capataz,"
he said, stretching out his arm almost affectionately
towards Nostromo's shoulder. "I am going to tell
you a very simple thing. You are safe because you
are needed. I would not give you away for any con-
ceivable reason, because I want you."

In the dark Nostromo bit his lip. He had heard
enough of that. He knew what that meant. No more
of that for him. But he had to look after himself now,
he thought. And he thought, too, that it would not
be prudent to part in anger from his companion. The
doctor, admitted to be a great healer, had, amongst
the populace of Sulaco, the reputation of being an evil
sort of man. It was based solidly on his personal ap-
pearance, which was si range, and on his rough ironic
manner — ^proofs visible, sensible, and incontrovertible
of the doctor's malevolent disposition. And Nostromo
was of the people. So he only grunted incredulously.

"You, to speak plainly, are the only man," the doctor
pursued. "It is in your power to save this town and

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. . . everybody from the destructive rapacity of
men who "

"No, senor," said Nostromo, sullenly. "It is not
in my power to get the treasure back for you to give
up to Sotillo, or Pedrito, or Gamacho. What do I
know?"

"Nobody expects the impossible," was the answer.

"You have said it yourself — ^nobody," muttered
Nostromo, in a gloomy, threatening tone.

But Dr. Monygham, full of hope, disregarded the
enigmatic words arid the threatening tone. To their
eyes, accustomed to obscurity, the late Seiior Hirsch,
growing more distinct, seemed to have come nearer.
And the doctor lowered his voice in exposing his scheme
as though afraid of being overheard.

He was taking the indispensable man into his fullest
confidence. Its implied flattery and suggestion of great
risks came with a familiar sound to the Capataz. His
mind, floating in irresolution and discontent, recognized
it with bitterness. He understood well that the doctor
was anxious to save the San Tome mine from annihila-
tion. He would be nothing without it. It was his
interest. Just as it had been the interest of Sefior
Decoud, of the Blancos, and of the Europeans to get
his Cargadores on their side. His thought became
arrested upon Decoud. What would happen to him?

Nostromo's prolonged silence made the doctor un-
easy. He pointed out, quite unnecessarily, that though
for the present he was safe, he could not live concealed
for ever. The choice was between accepting the mission
to Barrios, with all its dangers and diflSculties, and leav-
ing Sulaco by stealth, ingloriously, in poverty. I

"None of yoiu- friends could reward you and protect
you just now, Capataz. Not even Don Carlos himself."

"I would have none of your protection and none of

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466 NOSTROMO

your rewards. I only wish I could trust your courage
and your sense. When I xetum in triumph, as you
say, with Barrios, I may find you all destroyed. You
have the knife at your throat now."

It was the doctor's turn to remain silent in the con-
templation of horrible contingencies.

"Well, we would trust your courage and your sense.
And you, too, have a knife at your throat."

"Ah! And whom am I to thank for that? What
are your politics and your mines to me — ^your silver and
your constitutions — ^yoiu- Don Carlos this, and Don
Jose that "

"I don't know," burst out the exasperated doctor.
"There are innocent people in danger whose little
finger is worth more than you or I and all the Ribier-
ists together. I don't know. You should have asked
yourself before you allowed Decoud to lead you into
all this. It was your place to think like a man; but
if you did not think then, try to act like a man now.
Did you imagine Decoud cared very much for what
would happen to you?"

"No more than you care for what will happen to me,"
muttered the other.

"No; I care for what will happen to you as little as I
care for what will happen to myself."

"And all this because you are such a devoted Ribier-
ist?" Nostromo said in an incredulous tone.

"All this because I am such a devoted Ribierist,"
repeated Dr. Monygham, grimly.

Again Nostromo, gazing abstractedly at the body of
the late Sefior Hirsch, remained silent, thinking that the
doctor was a dangerous person in more than one sense.
It was impossible to trust him.

"Do you speak in the name of Don Carlos? " he asked
at last.

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"Yes. I do," the doctor said, loudly, without hesita-
tion. "He must come forward now. He must," he
added in a mutter, which Nostromo did not catch.

"What did you say, senor.'^"

The doctor started. "I say that you must be true to
yourself, Capataz. It would be worse than folly to fail
now."

"True to myself," repeated Nostromo. "How do
you know that I would not be true to myself if I told
you to go to the devil with your propositions? "

"I do not know. Maybe you would," the doctor
said, with a roughness of tone intended to hide the
sinking of his heart and the faltering of his voice. "All
I know is, that you had better get away from here.
Some of Sotillo's men may turn up here looking for
me.

He slipped off tlu table, listening intently. J ho
Capataz, too, stood up.

"Suppose I went to Cayta, what would you do mean-
time.'^" he asked.

"I would go to Sotillo directly you had left — in the
way I am thinking of."

"A very good way — if only that engineer-in -chief
consents. Remind him, senor, that I looked after the
old rich Englishman who pays for the railway, and that
I saved the lives of some of his people that time when a
gang of thieves came from the south to wreck one of his
pay-trains. It was I who discovered it all at the risk
of my life, by pretending to enter into their plans. Just
as you are doing with Sotillo."

"Yes. Yes, of course. But I can offer him better
arguments," the doctor said, hastily. "Leave it to me."

"Ah, yes! True. lam nothing."

"Not at all. You are everything."

They moved a few paces towards the door. Behind

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458 NOSTROMO

them the late Sefior Hirsch preserved the immobility
of a disregarded man.

"That will be all right. I know what to say to the
engineer," pursued the doctor, in a low tone. "My
difficulty will be with Sotillo."

And Dr. Monygham stopped short in the doorway as
if intimidated by the difficulty. He had made the sacri-
fice of his life. He considered this a fitting opportimity.
But he did not want to throw his life away too soon.
In his quality of betrayer of Don Carlos' confidence,
he would have ultimately to indicate the hiding-place
of the treasure. That would be the end of his deception,
and the end of himself as well, at the hands of the infuri-
ated colonel. He wanted to delay him to the very last
moment; and he had been racking his brains to invent
some place of concealment at once plausible and diffi-
cult of access.

He imparted his trouble to Nostromo, and con-
cluded —

"Do you know what, Capataz? I think that when
the time comes and some information must be given,
I shall indicate the Great Isabel. That is the best
place I can think of. What is the matter?"

A low exclamation had escaped Nostromo. The
doctor waited, surprised, and after a moment of pro-
found silence, heard a thick voice stammer out, "Utter
folly," and stop with a gasp.

"Why folly?"

"Ah! You do not sefe it," began Nostromo, scath-
ingly, gathering scorn as he went on. "Three men in
half an hour would see that no ground had been dis-
turbed anywhere on that island. Do you think that
such a treasure can be buried without leaving traces
of the work — eh! senor doctor? Why! you would not
gain half a day more before having your throat cut by

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Sotillo. The Isabel! What stupidity! What miser-
able invention! Ah! you are all alike, you fine men
of intelligence. All you are fit for is to betray men of
the people into undertaking deadly risks for objects
that you are not even sure about. If it comes ofiF you
get the benefit. If not, then it does not matter. He

is only a dog. Ah! Madre de Dios, I would "

He shook his fists above his head.

The doctor was overwhelmed at first by this fierce,
hissing vehemence.

" Well ! It seems to me on your own showing that the
men of the people are no mean fools, too," he said, sul-
lenly. "No, but come. You are so clever. Have you
a better place?"

Nostromo had calmed down as quickly as he had
flared up.

"I am clever enough for that," he said, quietly, al-
most with indifference. "You want to tell him of a
hiding-place big enough to take days in ransacking — sl
place where a treasure of silver ingots can be buried
without leaving a sign on the surface."

"And close at hand," the doctor put in.

"Just so, senor. Tell him it is sunk."

"This has the merit of being the truth," the doctor
said, contemptuously. "He will not believe it."

"You tell him that it is sunk where he may hope to
lay his hands on it, and he will believe you quick enough.
Tell him it has been sunk in the harbour in order to be
recovered afterwards by divers. Tell him you found out
that I had orders from Don Carlos Gould to lower the
cases quietly overboard somewhere in a line between
the end of the jetty and the entrance. The depth is
not too great there. He has no divers, but he has a ship,
boats^ ropes, chains, sailors — of a sort. Let him fish
for the silver. Let him set his fools to drag backwards

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♦^0 NOSTROMO

^nd forwards and crossways while he sits and watches
*ill his eyes drop out of his head."

"Really, this is an admirable idea," muttered the
doctor.

"Si. You tell him that, and see whether he will not
believe you! He will spend days in rage and torment —
and still he will believe. He will have no thought for
anything else. He will not give up till he is driven oflf —
why, he may even forget to kill you. He will neither
eat nor sleep. He "

"The very thing! The very thing!" the doctor
repeated in an excited whisper. "Capataz, I be-
gin to believe that you are a great genius in your
way."

Nostromo had paused; then began again in a changed
tone, sombre, speaking to himself as though he had
forgotten the doctor's existence.

"There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a
man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme and still
persevere, and will curse the day he ever heard of ih,
^ and will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still
believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see
it every time he closes his eyes. He will never forget

it till he is dead — and even then Doctor, did you

ever hear of the miserable gringos on Azuera, that can-
not die? Ha! ha! Sailors like myself. There is no
getting away from a treasure that once fastens upon
your mind."

"You are a devil of a man, Capataz. It is the most
plausible thing."

Nostromo pressed his arm.

"It will be worse for him than thirst at sea or hunger
in a town full of people. Do you know what that is?
He shall suffer greater torments than he inflicted upon
that terrified wretch who had no invention. None!

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 461

none! Not like me. I could have told Sotillo a deadly
tale for very little pain."

He laughed wildly and turned in the doorway towards
the body of the late Senor Hirsch, an opaque long blotch
in the semi-transparent obscurity of the room between
the two tall parallelograms of the windows full of stars.

*' You man of fear!" he cried. "You shall be avenged
by me — Nostromo. Out of my way, doctor! Stand
aside — or, by the sufiFering soul of a woman dead without
confession, I will strangle you with my two hands."

He bounded downwards into the black, smoky hall.
With a grunt of astonishment, Dr. Monygham threw
himself recklessly into the pursuit. At the bottom of
the charred stairs he had a fall, pitching forward on his
face with a force that would have stunned a spirit less
intent upon a task of love and devotion. He was up
in a moment, jarred, shaken, with a queer impression
of the terrestrial globe having been flung at his head in
the dark. But it wanted more than that to stop Dr.
Monygham's body, possessed by the exaltation of self-
sacrifice; a reasonable exaltation, determined not to lose
whatever advantage chance put into its way. He ran
with headlong, tottering swiftness, his arms going like a
windmill in his effort to keep his balance on his crippled
feet. He lost his hat; the tails of his open gaberdine
flew behind him. He had no mind to lose sight of the
indispensable man. But it was a long time, and a long
way from the Custom House, before he managed tjo
seize his arm from behind, roughly, out of breath.

" Stop ! Are you mad ? "

Already Nostromo was walking slowly, his head
dropping, as if checked in his pace by the weariness
of irresolution.

"What is that to you? Ah! I forgot you want me
for something. Always. Siempre Nostromo."

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462 NOSTROMO

"What do you mean by talldng of strangling me?"
panted the doctor.

"What do I mean? I mean that the king of the
devils himself has sent you out of this town of cowards
and talkers to meet me to-night of all the nights of my
life."

Under the starry sky the Albergo d'ltalia Una
emerged, black and low, breaking the dark level of the
plain. Nostromo stopped altogether.

"The priests say he is a tempter, do they not?" he
added, through his clenched teeth.

"My good man, you drivel. The devil has nothing
to do with this. Neither has the town, which you may
call by what name you please. But Don Carlos Gould
is neither a coward nor an empty talker. You will
admit that?" He waited. "Well?"

"Could I see Don Carlos?"

"Great heavens! No! Why? What for?" exclaimed
the doctor in agitation. "I tell you it is madness. I
will not let you go into the town for anything."

"I must."

"You must not!" hissed the doctor, fiercely, almost
beside himself with the fear of the man doing away with
his usefulness for an imbecile whim of some sort. "I
tell you you shall not. I would rather "

He stopped at loss for words, feeling fagged out,
powerless, holding on to Nostromo's sleeve, absolutely
for support after his run. .^

"I am betrayed!" muttered the Capataz to himself;
and the doctor, who overheard the last word, made an
effort to speak calmly.

"That is exactly what would happen to you. You
would be betrayed."

He thought with a sickening dread that the man was
so well known that he could not escape recognition.

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The house of the Seflor Admmistrador was beset by
spies, no doubt. And even the very servants of the
casa were not to be trusted. "Reflect, Capataz," he
said, impressively . . . . "Whatareyou laughing at?"

"I am laughing to think that if somebody that did not
approve of my presence in town, for instance — ^you
understand, senor doctor — if somebody were to give
me up to Pedrito, it would not be beyond my power to
make friends even with him. It is true. What do you
think of that?''

"You are a man of infinite resource, Capataz," said
Dr. Monygham, dismally. "I recognize that. But
the town is full of talk about you; and those few Car-
gadores that are not in hiding with the railway people
have been shouting *Viva Montero' on the Plaza all
day."

"My poor Cargadores!" muttered Nostromo. "Be-
trayed! Betrayed!"

"I imderstand that on the wharf you were pretty free
in laying about you with a stick amongst your poor
Cargadores," the doctor said in a grim tone, which
showed that he was recovering from his exertions.
"Make no mistake. Pedrito is furious at Seiior
Ribiera's rescue, and at having lost the pleasure of
shooting Decoud. Already there are rumours in the
town of the treasiu'e having been spirited away. To
have missed that does not please Pedrito either; but
let me tell you that if you had all that silver in your
hand for ransom it would not save you."

Tiuming swiftly, and catching the doctor by the shoul-
ders, Nostromo thrust his face close to his.

" Maladetta ! You follow me speaking of the treasure.
You have sworn my ruin. You were the last man who
looked upK)n me before I went out with it. And Sidoni
the engine-driver says you have an evil eye."

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464 NOSTROMO

"He ought to know. I saved his broken leg for him
last year," the doctor said, stoically. He felt on his
shoulders the weight of these hands famed amongst the
populace for snapping thick ropes and bending horse-
shoes. "And to you I offer the best means of saving
yourself — let me go — and of retrieving your great reputa-
tion. You boasted of making the Capataz de Carga-
dores famous from one end of America to the other
about this wretched silver. But I bring you a better
opportimity — let me go, hombre!"

Nostromo released him abruptly, and the doctor
feared that the indispensable man would run off again.
But he did not. He walked on slowly. The doctor
hobbled by his side till, within a stone's throw from the
Casa Viola, Nostromo stopped again.
\^ Silent in inhospitable darkness, the Casa Viola seemed
to have changed its nature; his home appeared to repel
him with an air of hopeless and inimical mystery. The
doctor said —

"You will be safe there. Go in, Capataz."

"How can I go in?" Nostromo seemed to ask himself
in a low, inward tone. "She cannot unsay what she
said, and I cannot undo what I have done."

"I tell you it is all right. Viola is all alone in there.
I looked in as I came out of the town. You will be
perfectly safe in that house till you leave it to make your
name famous on the Campo. I am going now to ar-
range for your departure with the engineer-in-chief,
and I shall bring you news here long before daybreak."

Dr. Monygham, disregarding, or perhaps fearing to
penetrate the meaning of Nostromo's silence, clapped him
lightly on the shoulder, and starting off with his smart,
lame walk, vanished utterly at the third or fourth hop
in the direction of the railway track. Arrested between
the two wooden posts for people to fasten their horses to.

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 465

Nostromo did not Inove, as if he, too, had been planted
solidly in the groimd. At the end of half an hour he
lifted his head to the deep baying of the dogs at the rail-
way yards, which had burst out suddenly, tumultuous
and deadened as if coming from under the plain. That
lame doctor with the evil eye had got there pretty fast.

Step by step Nostromo approached the Albergo
d 'Italia Una, which he had never known so lightless, so
silent, before. The door, all black in the pale wall,
stood open as he had left it twenty-four hours before,
when he had nothing to hide from the world. He re-
mained before it, irresolute, like a fugitive, like a man
betrayed. Poverty, misery, starvation! Where had
he heard these words? The anger of a dying woman
had prophesied that fate for his folly. It looked as if
it would come true very quickly. And the leperos
would laugh — she had said. Yes, they would laugh
if they knew that the Capataz de Cargadores was at
the mercy of the mad doctor whom they could remem-
ber, only a few years ago, buying cooked food from a
stall on the Plaza for a copper coin — ^like one of them-
selves.

At that moment the notion of seeking Captain Mit«
ehell passed through his mind. He glanced in the direc-
tion of the jetty and saw a small gleam of light in the
O.S.N. Company's building. The thought of lighted
windows was not attractive. Two lighted windows
had decoyed him into the empty Custom House, only
to fall into the clutches of that doctor. No ! He would
not go near lighted windows again on that night.
Captain Mitchell was there. And what could he be
told? That doctor would worm it all out of him as if
he were a child.

On the threshold he called out "Giorgio!" in an
undertone. Nobody answered. He stepped in. "OZd/

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466 V NOSTROMO

viejo! Are you there? . . ."In the impenetrable
darkness his head swam with the illusion that the ob-
scurity of the kitchen was as vast as the Placid Gulf,
and that the floor dipped forward like a sinking lighter.
'^Ola! viejo r he repeated, falteringly, swaying where he
stood. His hand, extended to steady himself, fell
upon the table. Moving a step * forward, he shifted
it, and felt a box of matches under his fingers. He
fancied he had heard a quiet sigh. He listened for a
moment, holding his breath ; then, with trembling hands,
tried to strike a light.

The tiny piece of wood flamed up quite blindingly
at the end of his fingers, raised above his blinking eyes.
A concentrated glare fell upon the leonine white head
of old Giorgio against the black fire-place — ^showed him
leaning forward in a chair in staring immobility, sur-
rounded, overhung, by great masses of shadow, his
legs crossed, his cheek in his hand, an empty pipe in
the comer of his mouth. It seemed hours before he at-
tempted to turn his face; at the very moment the match
went out, and he disappeared, overwhelmed by the
shadows, as if the walls and roof of the desolate house
had collapsed upon his white head in ghostly silence.

Nostromo heard him stir and utter dispassionately
the words —

"It may have been a vision."

"No," he said, softly. "It is no vision, old man.'*

A strong chest voice asked in the dark —

"Is that you I hear, Giovann* Battista?"

"Si, viejo. Steady. Not so loud."

After his release by Sotillo, Giorgio Viola, attended to
the very door by the good-natured engineer-in-chief ,
had reentered his house, which he had been made to
leave almost at the very moment of his wife's death.
All was still. The lamp above was burning. He nearly

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 467

called out to her by name; and the thought that no call

from him would ever again evoke the answer of her

voice, made him drop heavily into the chair with a

loud groan, wrung out by the pain as of a keen blade

piercing his breast.

The rest of the night he made no soimd. The dark-
ness turned to grey, and on the colourless, clear, glassy
dawn the jagged sierra stood out flat and opaque, as if
cut out of paper.

The enthusiastic and severe soul of Giorgio Viola,
sailor, champion of oppressed humanity, enemy of kings,
and, by the grace of Mrs. Gould, hotel-keeper of the
Sulaco harbour, had descended into the open abyss of -
desolation amongst the shattered vestiges of his past.
He remembered his wooing between two campaigns,
a single short week in the season of gathering olives.
Nothing approached the grave passion of that time but")
the deep, passionate sense of his bereavement. He dis-
covered all the extent of his dependence upon the si-
lenced voice of that woman. It was her voice that he
missed. Abstracted, busy, lost in inward contempla-
tion, he seldom looked at his wife in those later years.
The thought of his girls was a matter of concern, not
of consolation. It was her voice that he would miss.
And he remembered the other child — the little boy who
died at sea. Ah! a man would have been something to
lean upon. And, alas! even Gian' Battista — ^he of whom,
and of Linda, his wife had spoken to him so anxiously
before she dropped off into her last sleep on earth, he on
whom she had called aloud to save the children, just
before she died — even he was dead !

And the old man, bent forward, his head in his hand,
sat through the day in immobility and solitude. He
never heard the brazen roar of the bells in town. When
it ceased the earthenware filter in the comer of the

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468 NOSTROMO

kitchen kept on its swift musical drip, drip into the
great porous jar below.

Towards sunset he got up, and with slow movements
disappeared up the narrow staircase. His bulk filled it;
and the rubbing of his shoulders made a small noise as of
a mouse running behind the plaster of a wall. While
he remained up there the house was as dumb as a grave.
Then, with the same faint rubbing noise, he descended.
He had to catch at the chairs and tables to regain his
seat. He seized his pipe off the high mantel of the
fire-place — ^but made no attempt to reach the tobacco —
thrust it empty into the comer of his mouth, and sat
down again in the same staring pose. The sun of Pe-
^xirito's entry into Sulaco, the last sun of Sefior Hirsch's
[ life, the first of Decoud's solitude on the Great Isabel,
i passed over the Albergo dTtalia Una on its way to the
west. The tinkling drip, drip of the filter had ceased,
the lamp upstairs had burnt itself out, and the night
beset Giorgio Viola and his dead wife with its ob-
scurity and silence that seemed invincible till the
Capataz de Cargadores, returning from the dead, put
them to flight with the splutter and flare of a match.

"Si, viejo. It is me. Wait."

Nostromo, after barricading the door and closing the
shutters carefully, groped upon a shelf for a candle, and
lit it.

Old Viola had risen. He followed with his eyes in the
dark the sounds made by Nostromo. The light dis-
closed him standing without support, as if the mere
presence of that man who was loyal, brave, incorrupti-
ble, who was all his son would have been, were enough
for the support of his decaying strength.

He extended his hand grasping the briar-wood pipe,
whose bowl was charred on the edge, and knitted his
bushy eyebrows heavily at the light.

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 469

"You have returned," he said, with shaky dignity.
"Ah! Very well! I "

He broke ofiF. Nostromo, leaning back against the
table, his arms folded on his breast, nodded at him
slightly.

"You thought I was drowned! No! The best dog
of the rich, of the aristocrats, of these fine men who
can only talk and betray the people, is not dead yet."

The Garibaldino, motionless, seemed to drink in the
sound of the well-known voice. His head moved
slightly once as if in sign of approval; but Nostromo saw
clearly that the old man understood nothing of the
words. There was no one to understand; no one he
could take into the confidence of Decoud's fate, of his
own, into the secret of the silver. That doctor was an
enemy of the people — a tempter. . . .

Old Giorgio's heavy frame shook from head to foot
with the effort to overcome his emotion at the sight of
that man, who had shared the intimacies of his domestic
life as though he had been a grown-up son.

"She believed you would return," he said, solemnly.

Nostromo raised his head.

"She was a wise woman. How could I fail to come
back ?"

He finished the thought mentally: "Since she has
prophesied for me an end of poverty, misery, and starva-
tion." These words of Teresa's anger, from the cir-
cumstances in which they had been uttered, like the
cry of a soul prevented from making its peace with
God, stirred the obscure superstition of personal
fortune from which even the greatest genius amongst
men of adventure and action is seldom free. They
reigned over Nostromo's mind with the force of a potent
malediction. And what a curse it was that which her
words had laid upon him! He had been orphaned so

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470 NOSTROMO

young that he could remember no other woman whom
he called mother. Henceforth there would be no enter-
prise in which he would not fail. The spell was working
already. Death itself would elude him now. . . .
He said violently —

"Come, viejo! Get me something to eat. I am
hungry! Sangre de DiosI The emptiness of my belly
makes me lightheaded."

With his chin dropped again upon his bare breast
above his folded arms, barefooted, watching from under
a gloomy brow the movements of old Viola foraging
amongst the cupboards, he seemed as if indeed fallen
under a curse — a ruined and sinister Capataz.

Old Viola walked out of a dark comer, and, without a
word, emptied upon the table out of his hollowed palms
a few dry crusts of bread and half a raw onion.

While the Capataz began to devour this beggar's
fare, taking up with stony-eyed voracity piece after
piece lying by his side, the Garibaldino went off, and
squatting down in another comer filled an earthenware
mug with red wine out of a wicker-covered demijohn.
With a familiar gesture, as when serving customers in
the cafe, he had thrust his pipe between his teeth to
have his hands free.

The Capataz drank greedily. A slight flush deepened
the bronze of his cheek. Before him, Viola, with a
turn of his white and massive head towards the stair-
case, took his empty pipe out of his mouth, and pro-
nounced slowly —

"After the shot was fired down here, which killed her
as surely as if the bullet had struck her oppressed heart,
she called upon you to save the children. Upon you,
Gian' Battista."

The Capataz looked up.

"Did she do that, Padrone? To save the children!

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They are with the English seiiora, their rich benefac-
tress. Hey! old man of the people. Thy benefac-
tress. . . ."

"I am old," muttered Giorgio Viola. "An English-
woman was allowed to give a bed to Garibaldi lying
wounded in prison. The greatest man that ever lived.
A man of the p>eople, too — a sailor. I may let another
keep a roof over my head. Si ... I am old. I
may let her. Life lasts too long sometimes."

"And she herself may not have a roof over her head
before many days are out, unless I . . . What do
you say? Am I to keep a roof over her head? Am I
to try — and save all the Blancos together with her?"

"You shall do it," said old Viola in a strong voice.
"You shall do it as my son would have. . . ."

" Thy son, viejo ! . . . . There never has been a
man like thy son. Ha, I must try. . , . But what
if it were only a part of the curse to lure me on? . . .
And so she called upon me to save — and then ? "

"She spoke no more." The heroic follower of Gari-
baldi, at the thought of the eternal stillness and silence
fallen upon the shrouded form stretched out on the bed
upstairs, averted his face and raised his hand to his
furrowed brow. "She was dead before I could seize
her hands," he stammered out, pitifully.

Before the wide eyes of the Capataz, staring at the
doorway of the dark staircase, floated the shape of the
Great Isabel, like a strange ship in distress, freighted
with enormous wealth and the solitary life of a man.
It was impossible for him to do anything. He could
only hold his tongue, since there was no one to trust.
The treasure would be lost, probably — unless Decoud.
. . . And his thought came abruptly to an end.
He p>erceived that he could not imagine in the least
what Decoud was likely to do.

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472 NOSTROMO

Old Viola had not stirred. And the motionless Capa-
taz dropped his long, soft eyelashes, which gave to the
upper part of his fierce, black- whiskered face a touch of
feminine ingenuousness. The silence had lasted for a
long time.

"God rest her soul!" he murmured, gloomily.

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CHAPTER TEN

The next day was quiet in the morning, except for the
faint sound of firing to the northward, in the direction of
Los Hatos. Captain Mitchell had listened to it from
his balcony anxiously. The phrase, "In my delicate
position as the only consular agent then in the port,
everything, sir, everything was a just cause for anxiety,"
had its place in the more or less jstereotyped relation of
the * 'historical events" which for the next few years was
at the service of distinguished strangers visiting Sulaco.
The mention of the dignity and neutrality of the flag,
so difficult to preserve in his position, "right in the thick
of these events between the lawlessness of that pirati-
cal villain Sotillo and the more regularly established
but scarcely less atrocious tyranny of his Excellency
Don Pedro Montero," came next in order. Captain
Mitchell was not the man to enlarge upon mere dangers
much. But he insisted that it was a memorable day.
On that day, towards dusk, he had seen "that poor
fellow of mine — ^Nostromo. The sailor whom I discov-
ered, and, I may say, made, sir. The man of the fa-
mous ride to Cayta, sir. An historical event, sir!"

Regarded by the O. S. N. Company as an old and
faithful servant, Captain Mitchell was allowed to attain
the term of his usefulness in ease and dignity at the head
of the enormously extended service. The augmenta-
tion of the establishment, with its crowds of clerks, an
office in town, the old office in the harbour, the division
into departments — ^passenger, cargo, lighterage, and
so on — secured a greater leisure for his last years in the

473

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474 NOSTROMO

regenerated Sulaco, the capital of the Occidental Re-
public. Liked by the natives for his good nature and
the formality of his manner, self-important and simple,
known for years as a "friend of our country/* he felt
himself a personality of mark in the town. Getting
up early for a turn in the market-place while the gigan-
tic shadow of Higuerota was still lying upon the fruit
and flower stalls piled up with masses of gorgeous colour-
ing, attending easily to current aflFairs, welcomed in
houses, greeted by ladies on the Alameda, with his
entry into all the clubs and a footing in the Casa Gould,
he led his privileged old bachelor, man-about-town
existence with great comfort and solemnity. But on
mail-boat days he was down at the Harbour Oflice at
an early hour, with his own gig, manned by a smart
crew in white and blue, ready to dash oflf and board
the ship directly she showed her bows between the
harbour heads.

It would be into the Harbour Office that he would
lead some privileged passenger he had brought oflf in his
own boat, and invite him to take a seat for a moment
while he signed a few papers. And Captain Mitchell,
seating himself at his desk, would keep on talking hos-
pitably —

"There isn't much time if you are to see everything
in a day. We shall be oflf in a moment. We'll have
lunch at the Amarilla Club — though I belong also to
the Anglo-American — mining engineers and business
men, don't you know — ^and to the Mirliflores as well,
a new club — ^English, French, Italians, all sorts — ^lively
young fellows mostly, who wanted to pay a compliment
to an old resident, sir. But we'll lunch at the Amarilla.
Interest you, I fancy. Real thing of the country. Men
of the first families. The President of the Occidental
Republic himself belongs to it, sir, Fin^ old bishop

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 475

with a broken nose in the patio. Remarkable piece
of statuary, I beheve. Cavaliere Parrochetti — ^you
know Parrochetti, the famous Italian sculptor — was
working here for two years — ^thought very highly of
our old bishop. . . . There! I am very much at
your service now.'*

Proud of his experience, penetrated by the sense of
historical importance of men, events, and buildings, he
talked pompously in jerky periods, with slight sweeps
of his short, thick arm, letting nothing "escape the
attention " of his privileged captive.

"Lot of building going on, as you observe. Before
the Separation it was a plain of burnt grass smothered
in clouds of dust, with an ox-cart track to our Jetty,
Nothing more. This is the Harbour Gate. Picturesque,
is it not? Formerly the town stopped short there.
We enter now the Calle de la Constitucion. Observe
the old Spanish houses. Great dignity. Eh? I sup-
pose it's just as it was in the time of the Viceroys, ex-
cept for the pavement. Wood blocks now. Sulaco
National Bank there, with the sentry boxes each side
of the gate. Casa Avellanos this side, with all the
ground-floor windows shuttered. A wonderful woman
lives there — ^Miss Avellanos — the beautiful Antonia.
A character, sir! A historical woman! Opposite
— Casa Gould. Noble gateway. Yes, the Goulds
of the original Gould Concession, that all the world
knows of now. I hold seventeen of the thousand-dollar
shares in the Consolidated San Tome mines. All the
poor savings of my lifetime, sir, and it will be enough
to keep me in comfort to the end of my days at home
when I retire. I got in on the ground-floor, you see.
Don Carlos, great friend of mine. Seventeen shares —
quite a little fortune to leave behind one, too. I have
a niece — married a parson — most worthy man, incum^

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476 NOSTROMO

bent of a small parish in Sussex; no end of children. 1
was never married myself. A sailor should exercise
self-denial. Standing under that very gateway, sir,
with some young engineer-fellows, ready to defend
that house where we had received so much kindness
and hospitality, I saw the first and last charge of
Pedrito's horsemen upon Barrios's troops, who had just
taken the Harbour Gate. They could not stand the
new rifles brought out by that poor Decoud. It was a
murderous fire. In a moment the street became
blocked with a mass of dead men and horses. They
never came on again."

And all day Captain Mitchell would talk like this
to his more or less willing victim —

"The Plaza. I call it magnificent. Twice the area
of Trafalgar Square."

From the very centre, in the blazing sunshine, he
pointed out the buildings —

"The Intendencia, now President's Palace — Cabildo,
where the Lower Chamber of Parliament sits. You
notice the new houses on that side of the Plaza? Com-
pania Anzani, a great general store, like those coopera*
tive things at home. Old Anzani was murdered by the
National Guards in front of his safe. It was even for
that specific crime that the deputy Gamacho, com-
manding the Nationals, a bloodthirsty and savage
brute, was executed publicly by garrotte upon the sen-
tence of a court-martial ordered by Barrios. Anzani's
nephews converted the business into a company.
All that side of the Plaza had been burnt; used to be
colonnaded before. A terrible fire, by the light of which
I saw the last of the fighting, the Uaneros flying, the
Nationals throwing their arms down, and the miners of
San Tome, all Indians from the Sierra, rolling by like a
torrent to the sound of pipes and cymbals, green flags

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 477

flying, a wild mass of men in white ponchos and green
hats, on foot, on mules, on donkeys. Such a sight, sir,
will never be seen again. The miners, sir, had marched
upon the town, Don Pepe leading on his black horse, ,
and their very wives in the rear on burros, screaming/
encouragement, sir, and beating tambourines. I re-
member one of these women had a green parrot seated
on her shoulder, as calm as a bird of stone. They had
just saved their Senor Administrador; for Barrios,
though he ordered the assault at once, at night, too,
would have been too late. Pedrito Montero had Don
Carlos led out to be shot — ^like his uncle many years ago
— ^and then, as Barrios said afterwards, *Sulaco would
not have been worth fighting for.' Sulaco without the
Concession was nothing; and there were tons and tons
of dynamite distributed all over the mountain with
detonators arranged, and an old priest. Father Roman,
standing by to annihilate the San Tome mine at the
first news of failure. Don Carlos had made up his
mind not to leave it behind, and he had the right
men to see to it, too."

Thus Captain Mitchell would talk in the middle of
the Plaza, holding over his head a white umbrella with a
green lining; but inside the cathedral, in the dim light,
with a faint scent of incense floating in the cool at-
mosphere, and here and there a kneeling female figure,
black or all white, with a veiled head, his lowered voice
became solemn and impressive. J

"Here," he would say, pointing to a niche in the wall
of the dusky aisle, "you see the bust of Don Jose Avel-
lanos, * Patriot and Statesman,' as the inscription says,
* Minister to Courts of England and Spain, etc., etc.,
died in the woods of Los Hatos worn out with his life-
long struggle for Right and Justice at the dawn of the
New Era.' A fair likeness. Parrochetti's work from

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478 NOSTROMO

some old photographs and a pencil sketch by Mrs.
Gould. I was well acquainted with that distinguished
Spanish-American of the old school, a true Hidalgo,
beloved by everybody who knew him. The marble
medallion in the wall, in the antique style, representing
a veiled woman seated with her hands clasped loosely
over her knees, commemorates that unfortunate young
gentleman who sailed out with Nostromo on that fatal
night, sir. See, 'To the memory of Martin Decoud,
his betrothed Antonia Avellanos.' Frank, simple,
noble. There you. have that lady, sir, as she is. An
exceptional woman. Those who thought she would
give way to despair were mistaken, sir. She has been
blamed in many quarters for not having taken the veil.
It was expected of her. But Doiia Antonia is not the
stuflf they make nuns of. Bishop Corbelan, her imcle,
lives with her in the Corbelan town house. He is a
fierce sort of priest, everlastingly worrying the Govern-
ment about the old Church lands and convents. I be-
lieve they think a lot of him in Rome. Now let us go
to the Amarilla Club, just across the Plaza, to get some
lunch."

Directly outside the cathedral on the very top of the
noble flight of steps, his voice rose pompously, his arm
found again its sweeping gesture.

^^Porveniry over there on that first fioor, above those
French plate-glass shop-fronts; our biggest daily. Con-
servative, or, rather, I should say. Parliamentary. We
have the Parliamentary party here of which the actual
Chief of the State, Don Juste Lopez, is the head; a very
sagacious man, I think. A first-rate intellect, sir. The
Democratic party in opposition rests mostly, I am sorry
to say, on these socialistic ItaKans, sir, with their secret
societies, camorras, and such-like. There are lots of
Italians settled here on the railway lands, dismissed

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 479

navvies, mechanics, and so on, all along the trunk line.
There are whole villages of Italians on the Campo.
And the natives, too, are being drawn into these ways
. . . American bar? Yes. And over there you can
see another. New Yorkers mostly frequent that /

one Here we are at the Amarilla. Observe ther

bishop at the foot of the stairs to the right as we go in."

And the lunch would begin and terminate its lavish
and leisurely course at a little table in the gallery. Cap-
tain Mitchell nodding, bowing, getting up to speak for a
moment to diflFerent oflScials in black clothes, merchants
in jackets, oflScers in imiform, middle-aged caballeros
from the Campo — sallow, little, nervous men, and fat,
placid, swarthy men, and Europeans or North Ameri-
cans of superior standing, whose faces looked very white
amongst the majority of dark complexions and black,
glistening eyes.

Captain Mitchell would lie back in the chair, casting
around looks of satisfaction, and tender over the table a
case full of thick cigars.

"Try a weed with your coflFee. Local tobacco. The
black coffee you get at the Amarilla, sir, you don't meet
anywhere in the world. We get the bean from a famous
cafeteria in the foot-hills, whose owner sends three sacks
every year as a present to his fellow members in remem-
brance of the fight against Gamacho's Nationals, carried
on from these very windows by the caballeros. He was
in town at the time, and took part, sir, to the bitter end.
It arrives on three mules — ^not in the common way, by
rail; no fear! — right into the patio, escorted by mounted
peons, in charge of the Mayoral of his estate, who walks
upstairs, booted and spurred, and delivers it to our
committee formally with the words, *For the sake of
those fallen on the third of May.' We call it Tres de
Mayo coffee. Taste it,"

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480 NOSTROMO

Captain Mitchell, with an expression as though mak-
ing ready to hear a sermon in a church, would lift the
tiny cup to his lips. And the nectar would be sipped
to the -bottom during a restful silence in a cloud of cigar
smoke.

"Look at this man in black just going out," he would
begin, leaning forward hastily. "This is the famous
Hernandez, Minister of War. The Times' special
correspondent, who wrote that striking series of letters
calling the Occidental Republic the * Treasure House of
the World,' gave a whole article to him and the force
he has organized — the renowned Carabineers of the
Campo."

Captain Mitchell's guest, staring curiously, would see
a figure in a long-tailed black coat walking gravely,
with downcast eyelids in a long, composed face, a
brow furrowed horizontally, a pointed head, whose
grey hair, thin at the top, combed down carefully on
all sides and rolled at the ends, fell low on the neck
and shoulders. This, then, was the famous bandit of
whom Europe had heard with interest. He put on a
high-crowned sombrero with a wide flat brim; a rosary
of wooden beads was twisted about his right wrist.
And Captain Mitchell would proceed —

"The protector of the Sulaco refugees from the rage of
Pedrito. As general of cavalry with Barrios he distin-
guished himself at the storming of Tonoro, where Senor
Fuentes was killed with the last remnant of the Mon-
terists. He is the friend and humble servant of Bishop
Corbelan. Hears three Masses every day. I bet
you he will step into the cathedral to say a prayer or two
on his way home to his siesta."

He took several puflFs at his cigar in silence; then, in
his most important manner, pronounced:

"The Spanish race, sir, is prolific of remarkable char

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 481

acters in every rank of life. ... I propose we go
now into the billiard-room, which is cool, for a quiet
chat. There's never anybody there till after five. I
could tell you episodes of the Separationist revolution
that would astonish you. When the great heat's over,
we'll take a turn on the Alameda."

The programme went on relentless, like a law of
Nature. The turn on the Alameda was taken with
slow steps and stately remarks.

"All the great world of Sulaco here, sir." Captain
Mitchell bowed right and left with no end of formality;
then with animation, "Dona Emilia, Mrs. Gould's
carriage. Look. Always white mules. The kindest,
most gracious woman the sim ever shone upon. A
great position, sir. A great position. First lady in
Sulaco — far before the President's wife. And worthy
of it." He took oflF his hat; then, with a studied
change of tone, added, negligently, that the man in
black by her side, with a high white collar and a scarred,
snarly face, was Dr. Monygham, Inspector of State
Hospitals, chief medical oflScer of the Consolidated San
Tome mines. "A familiar of the house. Everlast-
ingly there. No wonder. The Goulds made him.
Very clever man and all that, but I never liked him.
Nobody does. I can recollect him limping about the
streets in a check shirt and native sandals with a water-
melon under his arm — all he would get to eat for the
day. A big-wig now, sir, and as nasty as ever. How-
ever . . . There's no doubt he played his part
fairly well at the time. He saved us all from the deadly
incubus of Sotillo, where a more particular man might
have failed "

His arm went up.

"The equestrian statue that used to stand on the
pedestal over there has been removed. It was an

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482 ^ NOSTROMO

Nandcltfonism," Captain Mitchell commented, obscurely.
"There is some talk of replacing it by a marble shaft
conmiemorative of Separation, with angels of peace at
the four comers, and bronze Justice holding an even
balance, all gilt, on the top. Cavaliere Parrochetti
was asked to make a design, which you can see framed
under glass in the Municipal Sala. Names are to be
engraved all round the base. Well! They could do
no better than begin with the name of Nostromo. He
has done for Separation as much as anybody else, and,"
added Captain Mitchell, "has got less than many others
by it — when it comes to that." He dropp)ed on to a
stone seat under a tree, and tapped invitingly at the
place by his side. "He carried to Barrios the letters
from Sulaco which decided the General to abandon
Cayta for a time, and come back to our help here by sea.
The transports were still in harbour fortimately. Sir,
I did not even know that my Capataz de Cargadores
was alive. I had no idea. It was Dr. Monyghani
who came upon him, by chance, in the Custom House,
evacuated an hour or two before by the wretched Sotillo.
I was never told; neve^ given a hint, nothing — as if
I were imworthy of confidence. IVIonygham arranged
it all. He went to the railway yards, and got admission
to the engineer-in-chief, who, for the sake of the Goulds
as much as for anything else, consented to let an engine
make a dash down the line, one hundred and eighty
miles, with Nostromo aboard. It was the only way to
get him off. In the Construction Camp at the rail-
head, he obtained a horse, arms, some clothing, and
started alone on that marvellous ride — four hundred
miles in six days, through a disturbed country, ending
by the feat of passing through the Monterist lines out-
side Cayta. The history of that ride, sir, would make a
most exciting book. He carried all our lives in his

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THE LIGHTHOUSE * 483

pocket. Devotion, courage, fidelity, intelligence were
not enough. Of course, he was perfectly fearless and
incorruptible. But a man was wanted that would
know how to succeed. He was that man, sir. On the
fifth of May, being practically a prisoner in the Har-
bour OflSce of my Company, I suddenly heard the whis-
tle of an engine in the railway yards, a quarter of a
mile away. I could not believe my ears. I made one
jump on to the balcony, and beheld a locomotive under
a great head of steam run out of the yard gates, screech-
ing like mad, enveloped in a white cloud, and then, just
abreast of old Viola's inn, check almost to a standstill.
I made out, sir, a man — ^I couldn't tell who — dash out
of the Albergo d'ltalia Una, climb into the cab, and
then, sir, that engine seemed positively to leap clear of
the house, and was gone in the twinkling of an eye.
As you blow a candle out, sir! There was a first-rate
driver on the foot-plate, sir, I can tell you. They were
fired heavily upon by the National Guards in Rincon
and one other place. Fortunately the line had not
been torn up. In four hours they reached the Construc-
tion Camp. Nostromo had his start. . . . The
rest you know. YouVe got only to look round you.
There are people on this Alameda that ride in their
carriages, or even are alive at all to-day, because years
ago I engaged a runaway Italian sailor for a foreman of
our wharf simply on the strength of his looks. And
that's a fact. You can't get over it, sir. On the seven-
teenth of May, just twelve days after I saw the man
from the Casa Viola get on the engine, and wondered
what it meant, Barrios's transports were entering this
harbour, and the * Treasure House of the World,' as
The Times man calls Sulaco in his book, was saved in-
tact for civilization — ^for a great future, sir. Pedrito,
with Hernandez on the west, and the San Tome min,ers

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484 NOSTROMO

pressing on the land gate, was not able to oppose the
landing. He had been sending messages to Sotillo
for a week to join him. Had Sotillo done so there
would have been massacres and proscription that would
have left no man or woman of position ahve. But
that's where Dr. Monygham comes in. Sotillo, blind
and deaf to everything, stuck on board his steamer
watching the dragging for silver, which he beheved to
be simk at the bottom of the harbour. They say that
for the last three days he was out of his mind raving
and foaming with disappointment at getting nothing,
flying about the deck, and yelling curses at the boats
with the drags, ordering them in, and then suddenly
stamping his foot and crying out, *And yet it is there!
I see it! I feel it!'

"He was preparing to hang Dr. Monygham (whom he
had on board) at the end of the after-derrick, when the
first of Barrios's transports, one of our own ships at
that, steamed right in, and ranging close alongside
opened a small-arm fire without as much preliminaries
as a hail. It was the completest surprise in the world,
sir. They were too astounded at first to bolt below.
Men were falling right and left like ninepins. It's a
miracle that Monygham, standing on the after-hatch
with the rope already round his neck, escaped being
riddled through and through like a sieve. He told me
since that he had given himself up for lost, and kept on
yelling with all the strength of his lungs: 'Hoist a white
flag! Hoist a white flag!' Suddenly an old major
of the Esmeralda regiment, standing by, unsheathed
his sword with a shriek: *Die, perjured traitor!' and ran
Sotillo clean through the body, just before he fell him-
self shot through the head."

Captain Mitchell stopped for a while.

"Begad, sir! I could spin you a yam for hours.

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 486

But it's time we started oflF to Rincon. It would not do
for you to pass through Sulaco and not see the lights of
the San Tomfe mine, a whole mountain ablaze like a
lighted palace above the dark Campo. It's a fash-
ionable drive. . . . But let me tell you one little
anecdote, sir; just to show you. A fortnight or more
later, when Barrios, declared Generalissimo, was gone
in pursuit of Pedrito away south, when the Provisional
Junta, with Don Juste Lopez at its head, had promul-
gated the new Constitution, and our Don Carlos
Gould was packing up his trunks bound on a mission to
San Francisco and Washington (the United States, sir,
were the first great power to recognize the Occidental
Republic) — a fortnight later, I say, when we were
beginning to feel that our heads were safe on our
shoulders, if I may express myself so, a prominent man,
a large shipper by our line, came to see, me on business,
and, says he, the first thing: *I say. Captain Mitchell,
is that fellow' (meaning Nostromo) * still the Capataz of
your Cargadores or not? ' * What's the matter? ' says I.
* Because, if he is, then I don't mind; I send and receive
a good lot of cargo by your ships; but I have observed
him several days loafing about the wharf, and just now
he stopped me as cool as you please, with a request for
a cigar. Now, you know, my cigars are rather special,
and I can't get them so easily as all that.' *I hope
you stretched a point,' I said, very gently. * Why, yes.
But it's a confounded nuisance. The fellow's ever-
lastingly cadging for smokes.' Sir, I turned my eyes
away, and then asked, * Weren't you one of the prisoners
in the Cabildo?' *You know very well I was, and in
chains, too,' says he. *And under a fine of fifteen
thousand dollars?' He coloured, sir, because it got
about that he fainted from fright when they came to
arrest him, and then behaved before Fuentes in a man-

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486 NOSTROMO

ner to make the very policianos, who had dragged him
there by the hair of his head, smile at his cringing.
*Yes,' he says, in a sort of shy way. *Why?' *Oh,
nothing. You stood to lose a tidy bit,' says I, *even
if you saved your life. . . . But what can I do
for you?' He never even saw the point. Not he.
And that's how the world wags, sir."

He rose a little stiffly, and the drive to'Rincon would
be taken with only one philosophical remark, uttered
by the merciless cicerone, with his eyes fixed upon the
lights of San Tome, that seemed suspended in the dark
night between earth and heaven.

"A great power, this, for good and evil, sir. A great
power."

And the dinner of the Mirliflores would be eaten,
excellent as to cooking, and leaving upon the traveller's
mind an impression that there were in Sulaco many
pleasant, able young men with salaries apparently
too large for their discretion, and amongst them a few^
mostly Anglo-Saxon, skilled in the art of, as the saying
is, "taking a rise" out of his kind host.

With a rapid, jingling drive to the harbour in a two-
wheeled machine (which Captain Mitchell called a cur-
ricle) behind a fleet and scraggy mule beaten all the
time by an obviously Neapolitan driver, the cycle
would be nearly closed before the lighted-up offices of
the O. S. N. Company, remaining open so late because
of the steamer. Nearly — ^but not quite.

"Ten o'clock. Your ship won't be ready to leave till
half-past twelve, if by then. Come in for a brandy-
and-soda and one more cigar."

And in the superintendent's private room the privi-
leged passenger by the Ceres, or JunOy or Pallas^ stunned
and as it were annihilated mentally by a sudden surfeit
of sights, sounds, names, facts, and complicated infor-

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 487

mation imperfectly apprehended, would listen like a
tired child to a fairy tale; would hear a voice, familiar
and surprising in its pompousness, tell him, as if from
another world, how there was "in this very harbour"
^n international naval demonstration, which put an
end to the Costaguana-Sulaco War. How the United
States cruiser, Powhattariy was the first to salute the y
Occidental flag — white, with a wreath of green laurel^
in the middle encircling a yellow amarilla flower. Would
hear hdw General Montero, in less than a month after
proclaiming himself Emperor of Costaguana, was shot
dead (during a solemn and public distribution of orders
and crosses) by a young artillery oJ05oer, the brother of
his then mistress.

"The abominable Pedrito, sir, fled the country," the
voice would say. And it would continue: "A captain
of one of our ships told me lately that he recognized
Pedrito the Guerrillero, arrayed in purple slippers and a
velvet smoking-cap with a gold tassel, keeping a dis-
orderly house in one of the southern ports."

"Abominable Pedrito! Who the devil was he?"
would wonder the distinguished bird of passage
hovering on the confines of waking and sleep with reso-
lutely open eyes and a faint but amiable curl upon his
lips, from between which stuck out the eighteenth or
twentieth cigar of that memorable day.

"He appeared to me in this very room like a haunting
ghost, sir" — Captain Mitchell was talking of his Nos-
tromo with true warmth of feeling and a touch of wist-
ful pride. "You may imagine, sir, what an effect it
produced on me. He had come round by sea with
Barrios, of course. And the first thing he told me after
I became fit to hear him was that he had picked up
the lighter's boat floating in the gulf! He seemed quite
overcome by the circumstance. And a remarkable

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488 NOSTROMO

enough circumstance it was, when you remember that
if was then sixteen days since the sinking of the silver.
At once I could see he was another man. He stared
at the wall, sir, as if there had been a spider or some-
thing running about there. The loss of the silver
preyed on his mind. The first thing he asked me about
was whether Dofia Antonia had heard yet of Decoud's
death. His voice trembled. I had to tell him that
Dofia Antonia, as a matter of fact, was not back
in town yet. Poor girl! And just as I was making
ready to ask him a thousand questions, with a sudden,
* Pardon me, seflor,* he cleared out of the oflBce alto-
gether. I did not see him again for three days. I wa !j
terribly busy, you know. It seems that he wandered
about in and out of the town, and on two nights turned
up to sleep in the baracoons of the railway people.
He seemed absolutely indiflFerent to what went on. I
asked him on the wharf, *When are you going to take
hold again, Nostromo? There will be plenty of work
for the Cargadores presently.'

"*Senor,' says he, looking at me in a slow, inquisitive
manner, 'would it surprise you to hear that I am too
tired to work just yet? And what work could I do now?
How can I look my Cargadores in the face after losing a
lighter?'

"I begged him not to think any more about the silver,
and he smiled. A smile that went to my heart, sir. * It
was no mistake,' I told him. *It was a fatality. A
thing that could not be helped.' ^Siy siT he said, and
turned away. I thought it best to leave him alone for a
bit to get over it. Sir, it took him years really, to get
over it. I was present at his interview with Don Car-
los. I must say that Gould is rather a cold man. He
had to keep a tight hand on his feelings, dealing with
thieves and rascals, in constant danger of ruin for him-

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 48&

self and wife for so many years, that it had become a
second nature. They looked at each other for a long
"time. Don Carlos asked what he could do for him, in
his quiet, reserved way.

" *My name is known from one end of Sulaco to the *)
other,' he said, as quiet as the other. * What more can \
you do for me?* That was all that passed on that occa- ■"
sion. Later, however, there was a very fine coasting
schooner for sale, and Mrs. Gould and I put our heads
together to get her bought and presented to • him.
It was done, but he paid all the price back within the
next three years. Business was booming all along this
seaboard, sir. Moreover, that man always succeeded
in everything except in saving the silver. Poor Dona
Antonia, fresh from her terrible experiences in the
woods of Los Hatos, had an interview with him, too.
Wanted to hear about Decoud: what they said, what
they did, what they thought up to the last on that fatal
night. Mrs. Gould told me his manner was perfect
for quietness and sympathy. Miss Avellanos burst
into tears only when he told her how Decoud had hap-
pened to say that his plan would be a glorious success.
. . . And there's no doubt, sir, that it is. It is a
success."

The cycle was about to close at last. And while
the privileged passenger, shivering with the pleasant
anticipations of his berth, forgot to ask himself,
"What on earth Decoud's plan could be?" Captain
Mitchell was saying, "Sorry we must part so soon. /
Your intelligent interest made this a pleasant day to
me. I shall see you now on board. You had a
glimpse of the * Treasure House of the Worid.' A
very good name that." And the coxswain's voice at
the door, announcing that the gig was ready, closed the
cycle.

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490 NOSTROMO

Nostromo had, indeed, found the Kghter's boat,
which he had left on the Great Isabel with Decoud,
floating empty far out in the gulf. He was then on
the bridge of tie first of Barrios's transports, and within
an hour's steaming from Sulaco. Barrios, always de-
lighted with a feat of daring and a good judge of cour-
age, had taken a great liking to the Capataz. During
the passage round the coast the General kept Nostromo
near his person, addressing him frequently in that
abrupt and boisterous manner which was the sign of his
high favour.

Nostromo's eyes were the first to catch, broad on the
bow, the tiny, elusive dark speck, which, alone with the
forms of the Three Isabels right ahead, appeared on
the flat, shimmering emptiness of the gulf. There are
times when no fact should be neglected as insignificant;
a small boat so far from the land might have had some
meaning worth finding out. At a nod of consent from
Barrios the transport swept out of her course, passing
near enough to ascertain that no one manned the little
cockle-shell. It was merely a common small boat gone
adrift with her oars in her. But Nostromo, to whose
mind Decoud had been insistently present for days, had
long before recognized with excitement the dinghy of
the lighter.

There could be no question of stopping to pick up that
thing. Every minute of time was momentous with the
lives and futures of a whole town. The head of the lead-
ing ship, with the General on board, fell off to her
course. Behind her, the fleet of transports, scattered
haphazard over a mile or so in the oflSng, like the finish
of an ocean race, pressed on, all black and smoking on
the western sky.

**Mi General,'* Nostromo's voice rang out loud, but
quiet, from behind a group of oiBScers, "I should like to

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 491

save that little boat. Pot Dios, I know her. She
belongs to my Company."

"And, por Dios/' guffawed Barrios, in a noisy, good-
humom^ voice, "you belong to me. I am going to
make you a captain of cavalry directly we get within
sight of a horse again."

**I can swim far better than I can ride, mi General,"
cried Nostromo, pushing through to the rail with a set
stare in his eyes. "Let me "

"Let you? What a conceited fellow that is," ban-
tered the General, jovially, without even looking at him.
"Let him go! Ha! ha! ha! He wants me to admit
that we cannot take Sulaco without him! Ha! ha!
ha! Would you like to swim off to her, my son?"

A tremendous shout from one end of the ship to the
other stopped his guffaw. Nostromo had leaped over-
board; and his black head bobbed up far away already
from the ship. The General muttered an appalled
**Cielo! Sinner that I am!" in a thunderstruck tone.
One anxious glance was enough to show him that Nos-
tromo was swimming with perfect ease; and then he
thundered terribly, "No! no! We shall not stop to
pick up this impertinent fellow. Let him drown —
that mad Capataz."

Nothing short of main force woidd have kept Nos-
tromo from leaping overboard. That empty boat,
coming out to meet him mysteriously, as if rowed by
an invisible spectre, exercised the fascination of some
sign, of some warning, seemed to answer in a startling
and enigmatic way the persistent thought of a treasure
and of a man's fate. He would have leaped if there
had been death in that half-mile of water. It wr^ as
smooth as a pond, and for some reason sharks art; un-
known in the Placid Gulf, though on the other side of
the Punta Mala the coastline swarms with them.

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492 NOSTROMO

The Capataz seized hold of the stem and blew with
force. A queer, faint feeling had come over him while
he swam. He had got rid of his boots and coat in the
water. He hmig on for a time, regaining his breath. In
the distance the transports, more in a bunch now, held
on straight for Sulaco, with their air of friendly contest,
of nautical sport, of a regatta; and the united smoke of
their funnels drove like a thin, sulphurous fogbank
right over his head. It was his daring, his courage, his
act that had set these ships in motion upon the sea,
hurrying on to save the lives and fortunes of the Blan-
cos, the taskmasters of the people; to save the San
Tome mine; to save the children.

With a vigorous and skilful effort he clambered over
the stem. The very boat! No doubt of it; no doubt
whatever. It was the dinghy of the lighter No. 3 —
the dinghy left with Martin Decoud on the Great Isabel
oO that he should have some means to help himself if
nothing could be done for him from the shore. And
here she had come out to meet him empty and inexpli-
cable. What had become of Decoud? The Capataz
made a minute examination. He looked for some
scratch, for some mark, for some sign. All he discov-
ered was a brown stain on the gunwale abreast of the
thwart. He bent his face over it and rubbed hard
with his finger. Then he sat down in the stem sheets,
passive, with his knees close together and legs aslant.

Streaming from head to foot, with his hair and whisk-
ers hanging lank and dripping and a lustreless stare
fixed upon the bottom boards, the Capataz of the Su-
laco Cargadores resembled a drowned corpse come up
from the bottom to idle away the sunset hour in a small
boat. The excitement of his adventurous ride, the
excitement of the return in time, of achievement, of
success, all this excitement centred round the assa

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 49S

c£ated ideas of the great treasure and of the only other
man who knew of its existence, had departed from him.
To the very last mom«it he had been cudgelling his
brains as to how he could manage to visit the Great
Isabel without loss of time and undetected. For the
idea of secrecy had come to be connected with the
treasure so closely that even to Barrios himself he had
refrained from mentioning the existence of Decoud
and of the silver on the island. The letters he carried
to the General, however, made brief mention of the
loss of the lighter, as having its bearing upon the sit-
uation in Sulaco. In the circumstances, the one-
eyed tiger-slayer, scenting battle from afar, had not
wasted his time in making inquiries from the messenger.
In fact. Barrios, talking with Nostromo, assumed that
both Don Martin Decoud and the ingots of San Tome
were lost together, and Nostromo, not questioned di-
rectly, had kept silent, under the influence of some in-
definable form of resentment and distrust. Let Don
Martin speak of everything with his own lips — was
what he told himself mentally.

And now, with the means of gaining the Great Isabel
thrown thus in his way at the earliest possible moment,
his excitement had departed, as when the soul takes
flight leaving the body inert upon an earth it knows no
more. Nostromo did not seem to know the gulf.
For a long time even his eyelids did not flutter once
upon the glazed emptiness of his stare. Then slowly,
without a limb having stirred, without a twitch of
muscle or quiver of an eyelash, an expression, a living
expression came upon the still features, deep thought
crept into the empty stare — as if an outcast soul, a'^
quiet, brooding soul, finding that untenanted body in
its way, had come in stealthily to take possession. ^

The Capataz frowned: and in the immense sfillness

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494 NOSTROMO

of sea, Islands, and coast, of cloud forms on the sky and
trails of light upon the water, the knitting of that brow
had the emphasis of a powerful gesture. Nothing
else budged for a long time; then the Capataz shook
his head and again surrendered himself to the universal
repose of all visible things. Suddenly he seized the
oars, and with one movement made the dinghy spin
round, head-on to the Great Isabel. But before he
began to pull he bent once more over the brown stain
on the gunwale.

"I know that thing," he muttered to himself, with a
sagacious jerk of the head. "That's blood."

His stroke was long, vigorous, and steady. Now and
then he looked over his shoulder at the Great Isabel,
presenting its low cliff to his anxious gaze like an im-
penetrable face. At last the stem touched the strand.
He flung rather than dragged the boat up the little
beach. At once, turning his back upon the sunset, he
plunged with long strides into the ravine, making the
water of the stream spurt and fly upwards at every
step, as if spuming its shallow, clear, murmuring spirit
with his feet. He wanted to save every moment of day-
light.

A mass of earth, grass, and smashed bushes had fallen
down very naturally from above upon the cavity under
the leaning tree. Decoud had attended to the conceal-
ment of the sflver as instructed, using the spade with
some intelligence. But Nostromo's half-smile of ap-
proval changed into a scornful curl of the lip by the
sight of the spade itself flung there in full view, as if in
utter carelessness or sudden panic, giving away the
whole thing. Ah! They were all ahke in their folly,
these homhres finos that invented laws and governments
and barren tasks for the people.

The Capataz picked up the spade, and with the feel of

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 495

the handle in his palm the desire of having a look at the
horse-hide boxes of treasure came upon him suddenly
In a very few strokes he uncovered the edges and cor-
ners of several; then, clearing away more earth, became
aware that one of them had been slashed with a knife.

He exclaimed at that discovery in a stifled voice, and
dropped on his knees with a look of irrational appre-
hension over one shoulder, then over the other. The
stiflF hide had closed, and he hesitated before he pushed
his hand through the long slit and felt the ingots inside.
There they were. One, two, three. Yes, four gone.
Taken away. Four ingots. But who? Decoud? No-
body else. And why? For what purpose? For what
cursed fancy? Let him explain. Four ingots carried
off in a boat, and — ^blood!

In the face of the open gulf, the sun, clear, unclouded,
unaltered, plunged into the waters in a grave and un-
troubled mystery of self-immolation consummated far
from all mortal eyes, with an infinite majesty of silence
and i>eace. Four ingots short! — and blood!

The Capataz got up slowly.

"He might simply have cut his hand," he muttered.
"But, then "

He sat down on the soft earth, unresisting, as if ht
had been chained to the treasure, his drawn-up legs
clasped in his hands with an air of hopeless submission,
like a slave set on guard. Once only he lifted his head
smartly: the rattle of hot musketry fire had reached his
ears, like pouring from on high a stream of dry peas
upon a drum. After listening for a while, he said^
half aloud —

"He will never come back to explain."

And he lowered his head again.

"ImpK)ssibIe!" he muttered, gloomily.

The sounds of firing died out. The loom of a great

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496 NOSTROMO

conflagration in Sulaco flashed up red above the coast,
played on the clouds at the head of the gulf, seemed to
touch with a ruddy and sinister reflection the forms of
the Three Isabels. He never saw it, though he raised
his head.

"But, then, I cannot know," he pronounced, dis-
tinctly, and remained silent and staring for hours.

He could not know. Nobody was to know. As
might have been supposed, the end of Don Martin
Decoud never became a subject of speculation for any
one except Nostromo. Had the truth of the facts
been known, there would always have remained the
question. Why? Whereas the version of his death
at the sinking of the lighter had no uncertainty of
motive. The young apostle of Separation had died
striving for his idea by an ever-lamerited accident.
But the truth was that he died from solitude, the enemy
kno\vn but to few on this earth, and whom only the
simplest of us are fit to withstand. The brilliant Cos-
taguanero of the boulevards had died from solitude and
want of faith in himself and others.

For some good and valid reasons beyond mere human
comprehension, the sea-birds of the gulf shun the Isa-
bels. The rocky head of Azuera is their haunt, whose
stony levels and chasms resound with their wild and
tumultuous clamour as if they were for ever quarrelling
over the legendary treasure.

At the end of his first day on the Great Isabel,
Decoud, turning in his lair of coarse grass, under the
shade of » tree, said to himself —

"I have not seen as much as one single bird all day."

And he had not heard a sound, either, all day but that
one now of his own muttering voice. It had been a
day of absolute silence — the first he had known in his
life. And he had not slept a wink. Not for all these

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 497

wakeful nights and the days of fighting, planning, talk-
ing; not for all that last night of danger and hard physi-
cal toil upon the gulf, had he been able to close his eyes
for a moment. And yet from sunrise to sunset he had
been lying prone on the ground, either on his back or on
his face.

He stretched himself, and with slow steps descended
into the gully to spend the night by the side of the sil-
ver. If Nostromo returned — as he might have done at
any moment — it was there that he would look first;
and night would, of course, be the proper time for an at-^
tempt to commimicate. He remembered with profound
indifference that he had not eaten anything yet since
he had been left alone on the island.

He spent the night open-eyed, and when the day
broke he ate something with the same indifference.
The brilliant "Son Decoud," the spoiled darling of the
family, the lover of Antonia and journalist of Sulaco,
was not fit to grapple with himself single-handed.
Solitude from mere outward condition of existence be- I
comes very swiftly a state of soul in which the affecta- |
tions of irony and scepticism have no place. It takes
possession of the mind, and drives forth the thought
into the exile of utter unbelief. After three days of
waiting for the sight of some human face, Decoud
caught himself entertaining a doubt of his own in-^
dividuality. It had merged into the world of cloud
and water, of natural forces and forms of nature. In
our activity alone do we find the sustaining illusion
of an independent existence as against the whole
scheme of things of which we form a helpless part.
Decoud lost all belief in the reality of his action past
and to come. On the fifth day an immense melan-
choly descended upon him palpably. He resolved
not to give himself up to these people in Sulaco, who

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498 NOSTROMO

had beset him, unreal and terrible, like jibbering and
obscene spectres. He saw himself struggling feebly in
their midst, and Antonia, gigantic and lovely like an
allegorical statue, looking on with scornful eyes at his
weakness.

Not a living being, not a speck of distant sail, ap-
peared within the range of his vision; and, as if to es-
cape from this soHtude, he absorbed himself in his
melancholy. The vague consciousness of a misdirected
life given up to impulses whose memory left a bitter
taste in his mouth was the first moral sentiment of his
manhood. But at the same time he felt no remorse.
What should he regret? He had recognized no other
virtue than intelligence, and had erected passions into
duties. Both his intelligence and his passion were
swallowed up easily in this great unbroken solitude of
waiting without faith. Sleeplessness had robbed his
will of all energy, for he had not slept seven hours in
the seven days. His sadness was the sadness of a scep-
tical mind. He beheld the imiverse as a succession of
incomprehensible images. Nostromo was dead. Every-
thing had failed ignominiously. He no longer dared to
think of Antonia. She had not survived. But if she
survived he could ^ot face her. And all exertion
seemed senseless.

On the tenth day, after a night spent without even
dozing off once (it had occurred to him that Antonia
could not possibly have ever loved a being so impal-
pable as himself), the solitude appeared like a great
void, and the silence of the gulf like a tense, thin cord
to which he hung suspended by both hands, without
fear, without surprise, without any sort of emotion
whatever. Only towards the evening, in the compara-
tive relief of coolness, he began to wish that this cord
would snap. He imagined it snapping with a report as

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 499

of a pistol — a sharp, full crack. And that would be
-the end of him. He contemplated that eventuality
with pleasure, because he dreaded the sleepless nights
in which the silence, remaining unbroken in the
shape of a cord to which he hung with both hands,
vibrated with senseless phrases, always the same but
utterly incomprehensible, about Nostromo, Antonia,
Barrios, and proclamations mingled into an ironical
and senseless buzzing. In the daytime he could look
at the silence like a still cord stretched to breaking-
point, with his life, his vain life, suspended to it like a
weight.

**I wonder whether I woidd hear it snap before I
fell," he asked himself.

The Sim was two hours above the horizon when he got
up, gaimt, dirty, white-faced, and looked at it with his
red-rimmed eyes. His limbs obeyed him slowly, as if
full of lead, yet without tremor; and the effect of that
physical condition gave to his movements an imhesi-
tating, dehberate dignity. He acted as if accomplish-
ing some sort of rite. He descended into the gully; /
for the fascination of all that silver, with its potential^
power, survived alone outside of himself. He picked
up the belt with the revolver, that was lying there, and
buckled it round his waist. The cord of silence could
never snap on the island. It must let him fall and
sink into the sea, he thought. And sink ! He was look-
ing at the loose earth covering the treasure. In the sea !
His aspect was that of a somnambidist. He lowered
himself down on his knees slowly and went on grubbing
with his fingers with industrious patience till he uncov-
ered one of the boxes. Without a pause, as if doing
some work done many times before, he slit it open and
took four ingots, which he put in his pockets. He
covered up the exposed box again and step by step

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500 NOSTROMO

came out of the gully. The bushes closed after him
with a swish.

It was on the third day of his solitude that he had
dragged the dinghy near the water with an idea of row-
ing away somewhere, but had desisted partly at the
whisper of lingering hope that Nostromo would return,
partly from conviction of utter uselessness of all eflFort.
Now she wanted only a slight shove to be set afloat.
He had eaten a little every day after the first, and
had some muscular strength left yet. Taking up the
oars slowly, he pulled away from the cliflF of the Great
Isabel, that stood behind him warm with sunshine,
as if with the heat of life, bathed in a rich light from
head to foot as if in a radiance of hope and joy. He
pulled straight towards the setting sun. When the gulf
had grown dark, he ceased rowing and flung the scuUs
in. The hoUow clatter they made in falling was the
'loudest noise he had ever heard in his life. It was a

t revelation. It seemed to recall him from far away.
Actually the thought, "Perhaps I may sleep to-night,'*
passed through his mind. But he did not believe it.
He believed in nothing; and he remained sitting on the
thwart.

The dawn from behind the mountains put a gleam
nto his unwinking eyes. After a clear daybreak the
jun appeared splendidly above the peaks of the range.

he great gulf burst into a glitter all around the boat;
and in this glory of merciless solitude the silence ap-
peared again before him, stretched taut like a dark,
thin string.

His eyes looked at it while, without haste, he shifted
his seat from the thwart to the gunwale. They looked
at it fixedly, while his hand, feeling about his waist,
unbuttoned the flap of the leather case, drew the re-
v^olver, cocked it, brought it forward pointing at his

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jni

iu]

THE LIGHTHOUSE 501

breast, pulled the trigger, and, with convulsive force,
sent the still-smoking weapon hurtling through the air.
His eyes looked at it while he fell forward and hung
with his breast on the gunwale and the fingers of his
right hand hooked luider the thwart. They looked

"It is done," he stammered out, in a sudden flow of
blood. His last thought was: "I wonder how that
Capataz died." The stiffness of the fingers relaxed,
and the lover of Antonia Avellanos rolled overboard \
without having heard the cord of silence snap in the |
isolitude of the Placid Gulf, whose gUttering surface/
remained untroubled by the fall of his body.

A victim of the disillusioned weariness which is the
retribution meted out to intellectual audacity, the bril-
liant Don Martin Decoud, weighted by the bars of Sanj
Tome silver, disappeared without a trace, swallowed I
up in the immense indifference of things. His sleep-
less, crouching figure was gone from the side of the
San Tome silver; and for a time the spirits of good and
evil that hover near every concealed treasure of tho
earth might have thought that this one had been for-
gotten by all mankind. Then, after a few days, an-
other form appeared striding away from the setting
sun to sit motionless and awake in the narrow black
gully all through the night, in nearly the same pose, in
the same place in which had sat that other sleepless man
who had gone away for ever so quietly in a small boat,
about the time of sunset. And the spirits of good and
evil that hover about a forbidden treasure imderstood
well that the silver of San Tome was provided now with
a faithful and lifelong slave.

The magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, victim of
the disenchanted vanity which is the reward of auda-
cious action, sat in the weary pose of a himted outcast
through a night of sleeplessness as tormenting as any

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50ft NOSTROMO

known to Decoud, his companion in the most desperate
affair of his life. And he wondered how Decoud had
died. But he knew the part he had played himself.
J First a woman, then a man, abandoned both in their
'last extremity, for the sake of this accursed treasure.
It was paid for by a soul lost and by a vanished life.
The blank stillness of awe was succeeded by a gust of
immense pride. There was no one in the world but
Gian' Battista Fidanza, Capataz de Cargadores, the
incorruptible and faithful Nostromo, to pay such a
price.

He had made up his mind that nothing should be
allowed now to rob him of his bargain. Nothing. De-
coud had died. But how? That he was dead he had
not a shadow of a doubt. But four ingots? . . .
What for? Did he mean to come for more — some
other time?

The treasure was putting forth its latent power.
It troubled the clear mind of the man who had paid
the price. He was sure that Decoud was dead. The
island seemed full of that whisper. Dead! Gone!
Aad he caught himself listening for the swish of bushes
and the splash of the footfalls in the bed of the brook.
Dead! The talker, the novio of Dofia Antonia!

"Ha!" he murmured, with his head on his knees,
under the livid clouded dawn breaking over the liber-
ated Sulaco and upon the gulf as gray as ashes. "It
is to her that he will fly. To her that he will fly!"

And four ingots! Did he take them in revenge, to
cast a spell, like the angry woman who had prophesied
remorse and failure, and yet had laid upon him the
task of saving the children? Well, he had saved the
children. He had defeated the spell of poverty and
starvation. He had done it all alone — or perhaps
helped by the devil. Who cared? He had done it.

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betrayed as he was, and saving by the same stroke the
San Tom6 mine, which appeared to him hateful and
immense, lording it by its vast wealth over the valour,/
the toil, the fidelity of the poor, over war and peace,'
over the labours of the town, the sea, and the Campo.

The sun lit up the sky behind the p>eaks of the Cor-
dillera. The Capataz looked down for a time upon the
fall of loose earth, stones, and smashed bushes, conceal-
ing the hiding-place of the silver.

"I must grow rich very slowly," he meditated, aloud.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

SuLACO outstripped Nostromo's prudence, growing
frich swiftly on the hidden treasures of the earth, hovered
/over by the anxious spirits of good and evil, torn out
by the labouring hands of the people. It was like a
second youth, like a new life, full of promise, of unrest,
of toil, scattering lavishly its wealth to the four comers
of an excited world. Material changes swept along
in the train of material interests. And other changes
more subtle, outwardly unmarked, affected the minds
and hearts of the workers. Captain Mitchell had gone
home to live on his savings invested in the San Tome
mine; and Dr. Monygham had grown older, with his
head steel-grey and the unchanged expression of his
face, living on the inexhaustible treasure of his devo-
tion drawn upon in the secret of his heart like a store
of unlawful wealth.

The Inspector-General of State Hospitals (whose
maintenance is a charge upon the Gould Concession),
Official Adviser on Sanitation to the Municipality,
Chief Medical Officer of the San Tomfe Consolidated
Mines (whose territory, containing gold, silver, copper,
lead, cobalt, extends for miles along the foot-hills of
the Cordillera), had felt poverty-stricken, miserable,
and starved during the prolonged, second visit the
Goulds paid to Europe and the United States of Amer-
ica. Intimate of the casa, proved friend, a bachelor
without ties and without establishment (except of
the professional sort), he had been asked to take up his
quarters in the Gould house. In the eleven months

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of their absence the familiar rooms, recalling at every
glance the woman to whom he had given all his loyalty,
had grown intolerable. As the day approached for
the arrival of the mail boat Hermes (the latest addition
to the O. S. N. Co.'s splendid fleet), the doctor hobbled
about more vivaciously, snapped more sardonically
at simple and gentle out of sheer nervousness.

He packed up his modest trunk with speed, with
fury, with enthusiasm, and saw it carried out past the
old porter at the gate of the Casa Gould with delight,
with intoxication; then, as the hour approached, sitting
alone in the great landau behind the white mules, a
little sideways, his drawn-in face positively venomous
with the effort of self-control, and holding a pair of new
gloves in his left hand, he drove to the harbour.

His heart dilated within him so, when he saw the
Goulds on the deck of the Hermes, that his greetings
were reduced to a casual mutter. Driving back to
town, all three were silent. And in the patio the doctor,
in a more natural manner, said —

" I'll leave you now to yourselves. I'll call to-morrow
if I may?"

**Come to lunch, dear Dr. Monygham, and come
early," said Mrs. Gould, in her travelling dress and her
veil down, turning to look at him at the foot of the
stairs; while at the top of the flight the Madonna, in
blue robes and the Child on her arm, seemed to welcome
her with an aspect of pitying'tendemess.

"Don't expect to find me at home," Charles Gould
warned him. "I'll be off early to the mine."

After lunch, Doiia Emilia and the senor doctor came
slowly through the inner gateway of the patio. The
large gardens of the Casa Gould, surrounded by high
walls, and the red-tile slopes of neighbouring roofs, lay
open before them, with masses of shade under the trees

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606 NOSTROMO

mnd level surfaces of sunlight upon the lawns. A triple
row of old orange trees surrounded the whole. Bare-
footed, brown gardeners, in snowy white shirts and wide
calzoneras, dotted the grounds, squatting over flower-
beds, passing between the trees, dragging slender india-
rubber tubes across the gravel of the paths; and the
fine jets of water crossed each other in graceful ciu^es,
sparkling in the sunshine with a slight pattering noise
upon the bushes, and an eflFect of showered diamonds
upon the grass.

Dofia Emilia, holding up the train of a clear dress,
walked by the side of Dr. Monygham, in a longish
black coat and severe black bow on an immaculate shirt-
front. Under a shady clump of trees, where stood scat-
tered little tables and wicker easy-chairs, Mrs. Gould
sat down in a low and ample seat.

"Don't go yet," she said to Dr. Monygham, who was
unable to tear himself away from the spot. His chin
nestling within the points of his collar, he devoured her
stealthily with his eyes, which, luckily, were roimd and
hard like clouded marbles, and incapable of disclosing
his sentiments. His pitying emotion at the marks of
time upon the face of that woman, the air of frailty
and weary fatigue that had settled upon the eyes and
temples of the "Never-tired Sefiora" (as Don Pepe
years ago used to call her with admiration), touched
him almost to tears. "Don't go yet. To-day is all
my own," Mrs. Gould lU'ged, gently. " We are not back
yet officially. No one will come. It's only to-morrow
that the windows of the Casa Gould are to be lit up for
a reception.'*

The doctor dropped into a chair.

"Giving a tertulia?" he said, with a detached air.

"A simple greeting for all the kind friends who care to
come."

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"And only to-morrow?"

"Yes. Charles would be tired out after a day at the

mine, and so I It would be good to have him to

myself for one evening on our return to this house I love.
It has seen all my life."

"Ah, yes!" snarled the doctor, suddenly. "Women
count time from the marriage feast. Didn't you live a
little before?"

"Yes; but what is there to remember? There were no
cares."

Mrs. Gould sighed. And as two friends, after a long
separation, will revert to the most agitated j>eriod of
their lives, they began to talk of the Sulaco Revolution.
It seemed strange to Mrs. Gould that people who had
taken part in it seemed to forget its memory and its
lesson.

"And yet," struck in the doctor, "we who played our
part in it had our reward. Don Pfepfe, though super-
annuated, still can sit a horse. Barrios is drinking him-
self to death in jovial company away somewhere on his
fundadon beyond the Bolson de Tonoro. And the heroic
Father Rom^n — ^I imagine the old padre blowing up
systematically the San Tome mine, uttering a pious
exclamation at every bang, and taking handf uls of snuff y
between the explosions — the heroic Padre Roman says
that he is not afraid of the harm Holroyd's missionaries
can do to his flock, as long as A^ is alive."

Mrs. Gould shuddered a little at the allusion to the
destruction that had come so near to the San Tom6 mine.

"Ah, but you, dear friend?"

"I did the work I was fit for."

"You faced the most cruel dangers of all. Something
more than death."

"No, Mrs. Gould! Only death — by hanging. And
I am rewarded beyond my deserts."

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608 NOSTROMO

Noticing Mrs. Gould's gaze fixed upon him, he drop-
ped his eyes.

"I've made my career — ^as you see," said the In-
spector-General of State Hospitals, taking up lightly
the lapels of his superfine black coat. The doctor's
self-respect marked inwardly by the almost complete
disappearance from his dreams of Father Beron, aj>-
peared visibly in what, by contrast with former care-
lessness, seemed an immoderate cult of personal appear-
ance. Carried out within severe limits of form and
colour, and in p>erpetual freshness, this change of ap-
parel gave to Dr. Monygham an air at the same time
professional and festive; while his gait and the un-
changed crabbed character of his face acquired from it a
startling force of incongruity.

"Yes," he went on. "We all had our rewards — the
engineer-in-chief. Captain Mitchell "

"We saw him," interrupted Mrs. Gould, in her
charming voice. "The poor dear man came up from
the country on purpose to call on us in our hotel in
London. He comported himself with great dignity,
but I fancy he regrets Sulaco. He rambled feebly
about 'historical events' till I felt I could have a cry."

"H'm," grunted the doctor; "getting old, I suppose.
Even Nostromo is getting older — though he is not
changed. And, speaking of that fellow, I wanted to
tell you something "

For some time the house had been full of murmurs, of
agitation. Suddenly the two gardeners, busy with rose
trees at the side of the garden arch, fell upon their knees
with bowed heads on the passage of Antonia Avellanos,
who appeared walking beside her uncle.

Invested with the red hat after a short visit to Rome,
where^ he had been invited by the Propaganda, Father
Corbelan, missionary to the wild Indians, conspirator,

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friend and patron of Hernandez the robber, advanced
with big, slow strides, gaunt and leaning forward, with
his powerful hands clasped behind his back. The first
Cardinal-Archbishop of Sulaco had preserved his fa-
natical and morose air; the aspect of a chaplain of bandits.
It was believed that his unexpected elevation to the
purple was a counter-move to the Protestant invasion
of Sulaco organized by the Holroyd Missionary Fund.
Antonia, the beauty of her face as if a little blurred,
her figure slightly fuller, advanced with her light walk
and her high serenity, smiling from a distance at Mrs.
Gould. She had brought her uncle over to see dear
Emilia, without ceremony, just for a moment before the
siesta.

When all were seated again. Dr. Monygham, who had
come to dislike heartily everybody who approached
Mrs. Gould with any intimacy, kept aside, pretending
to be lost in profound meditation. A louder phrase
of Antonia made him lift his head.

"How can we abandon, groaning under oppression,
those who have been our countrymen only a few years
ago, who are our countrymen now?" Miss Avellanos
was saying. "How can we remain blind, and deaf
without pity to the cruel wrongs suffered by our
brothers? There is a remedy."

"Annex the rest of Costaguana to the order and pros-
;>erity of Sulaco," snapf)ed the doctor. "There is no
Jjther remedy."

"I am convinced, seiior doctor," Antonia said, with
the earnest calm of invincible resolution, "that this
was from the first poor Martin's intention." y

"Yes, but the material interests will not let you
jeopardize their development for a mere idea of pity
and justice," the doctor muttered, grumpily. "And
it is just as well perhaps."

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510 NOSTROMO

The Cardinal-Archbishop straightened up his gaunt,
bony frame.

"We have worked for them; we have made them,
these material interests of the foreigners,'* the last of
the Corbelans uttered in a deep, denunciatory tone.

"And without them you are nothing," cried the doc-
tor from the distance. "They will not let you."

"Let them beware, then, lest the people, prevented
from their aspirations, should rise and claim their share
of the wealth and their share of the power," the popular
Cardinal-Archbishop of Sulaco declared, significantly,
menacingly.

A silence ensued, during which his Eminence stared,
frowning at the groimd, and Antonia, graceful and rigid
in her chair, breathed calmly in the strength of her con-
victions. Then the conversation took a social turn,
touching on the visit of the Goulds to Europe. The
Cardinal-Archbishop, when in Rome, had suffered from
neuralgia in the head all the time. It was the climate
— ^the bad air.

When uncle and niece had gone away, with the ser-
vants again falling on their knees, and the old porter,
who had known Henry Gould, almost totally blind
and impotent now, creeping up to kiss his Eminence's
extended hand. Dr. Monygham, looking after them,
pronounced the one word —

"Incorrigible!"

Mrs. Gould, with a look upwards, dropped wearily
on her lap her white hands flashing with the gold and
stones of many rings.

"Conspiring. Yes!" said the doctor. "The last of
the Avellanos and the last of the Corbelans are con-
spiring with the refugees from Sta. Marta that flock
here after every revolution. The Cafe Lambroso at
the comer of the PUza is full of them; you qan hear

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their chatter across the street like the noise of a parrot-
house. They are conspiring for the invasion of Costa-
guana. And do you know where they go for strength,
for the necessary force? To the secret societies amongst
iminigrants and natives, where Nostromo — I should
say Captain Fidanza — is the great man. What gives
him that position? Who can say? Genius? He has
genius. He is greater with the populace than ever
he was before. It is as if he had some secret power;
some mysterious means to keep up his influence. He
holds conferences with the Archbishop, as in those old
days which you and I remember. Barrios is useless.
But for a military head they have the pious Hernandez. •
And they may raise the country with the new cry of
the wealth for the people."

"Will there be never any peace? Will there be no
rest?" Mrs. Gould whispered. "I thought that

we "

"No!'* interrupted the doctor. "There is no peace
and no rest in the development of material interests./
They have their law, and their justice. But it is founded
on expediency, and is inhuman; it is without rectitude,
without the continuity and the force that can be found
only in a moral principle. Mrs. Gould, the time ap-
proaches when all that the Gould Concession stands
for shall weigh as heavily upon the people as the bar-
barism, cruelty, and misrule of a few years back."

"How can you say that. Dr. Monygham?" she cried
out, as if hurt in the most sensitive place of her soul. ^

"I can say what is true,** the doctor insisted, obsti-
nately. "It'll weigh as heavily, and provoke resent-
ment, bloodshed, and vengeance, because the men have
grown diflFerent. Do you think that now the mine
would march upon the town to save their Senor Ad-
ministrador ? Do you think that? "

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512 NOSTROMO

She pressed the backs of her entwined hands on her
eyes and murmured hopelessly —

"Is it this we have worked for, then?"

The doctor lowered his head. He could follow her
silent thought. Was it for this that her life had been
robbed of all the intimate felicities of daily affection
which her tenderness needed as the human body needs
air to breathe? And the doctor, indignant with Charles
Gould's blindness, hastened to change the conversation.

"It is about Nostromo that I wanted to talk to you.
Ah! that fellow has some continuity and force. Noth-
ing will put an end to him. But never mind that.
There's something inexplicable going on — or perhaps
only too easy to explain. You know, Linda is prac-
tically the lighthouse keeper of the Great Isabel light.
The Garibaldino is too old now. His part is to clean
the lamps and to cook in the house; but he can't get
up the stairs any longer. The black-eyed Linda sleeps
all day and watches the light all night. Not all day,
though. She is up towards five in the afternoon, when
our Nostromo, whenever he is in harbour with his
schooner, comes out on his coiui^ing visit, pulling in a
small boat."

"Aren't they married yet?" Mrs. Gould asked.
"The mother wished it, as far as I can understand,
while Linda was yet quite a child. When I had the
girls with me for a year or so during the War of Separa-
tion, that extraordinary Linda used to declare quite
simply that she was going to be Gian' Battista's wife."

"They are not married yet," said the doctor, curtly,
"I have looked after them a little."

"Thank you, dear Dr. Monygham," said Mrs.
Gould; and under the shade of the big trees her little,
even teeth gleamed in a youthful smile of gentle malice.
"People don't know how really good you are. You

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will not let them know, as if on purpose to annoy me,
who have put my faith in your good heart long ago."

The doctor, with a lifting up of his upper lij), as
though he were longing to bite, bowed stiffly in his chair.
With the utter absorption of a man to whom love
comes late, not as the most splendid of illusions, but |
like an enlightening and priceless misfortune, the sight
of that woman (of whom he had been deprived for
nearly a year) suggested ideas of adoration, of kissing
the hem of her robe. And this excess of feeling trans-
lated itself naturally into an augmented grimness of
speech.

"I am afraid of being overwhelmed by too much
gratitude. However, these people interest me. I
went out several times to the Great Isabel light to look
after old Giorgio."

He did not tell Mrs. Gould that it was because he
found there, in her absence, the relief of an atmosphere
of congenial sentiment in old Giorgio's austere admira-
tion for the "English signora — the benefactress";
in black-eyed Linda's voluble, torrential, passionate
aflFection for "our Dona Emilia — that angel"; in the
white-throated, fair Giselle's adoring upward turn of
the eyes, which then glided towards him with a sidelong,
half-arch, half-candid glance, which made the doctor
exclaim to himself mentally, "If I weren't what I am,
old and ugly, I would think the minx is making eyes
at me. And perhaps she is. I dare say she would
make eyes at anybody." Dr. Monygham said nothing
of this to Mrs. Gould, the providence of the Viola
family, but reverted to what he called "our great
Nostromo."

"What I wanted to tell you is this: Our ^eat Nos-
tromo did not take much notice of the old man and
the children for some years. It's true, too, tliat he

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514 NOSTROMO

was away on his coasting voyages certainly ten months
out of the twelve. He was making his fortmie, as lie
told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done
uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is
a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself,
ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I re-
member being in Mitchell's oflSce one day, when lie
came in with that calm, grave air he always carries
everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of
.California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall,
as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return
that a lighthouse was being built on the cKflf of the
Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell ex-
plained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building
it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own
advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that
it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up
his moustaches and looking all roimd the cornice of the
room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be
made the keeper of that light."

"I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs.
Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for
these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison.*'

"The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's
humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delight-
ful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's sugges-
tion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good
pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion
is that she was always in love with that incorruptible
Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were
anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a
certain Ramirez."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez?
What sort of man is that?"

"Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Car-

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'PHE LIGHTHOUSE 515

gador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags,
till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him.
When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter
and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat — the
boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nos-
tromo selected that lighter for the work because she was
the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Com-
pany's fleet. Y6ung Ramirez was one of the five Car-
gadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure
from the Custom House on that famous night. As the
boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving
the Company's service, recommended him to Captain
Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the
routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from
a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the
Sulaco Cargadores."

"Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm
approval.

"Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham.
"Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when
I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too
glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who
saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonder-
ful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted
Ramirez for their chief, dimply because such was Nos-
tromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second
Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still,
the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him
to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the
recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino,
however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know
why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfec-
tion like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the
cx)urage, the fidelity, the honour of *the people.' Signor
Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of

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516 NOSTROMO

them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda,
with lier red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking
rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned
off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his
gun once.''

"But what of Giselle herself^" asked Mrs. Gould.

"She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I
don't think she cared much one way or another. Of
course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not
the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was
one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got
warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow
any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy
and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased
to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But
look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest,
lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well.
He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his
eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as
though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night
upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils
he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is^
returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As
late as midnight at times."

The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs.
Gould.

"Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking
puzzled.

"Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monyg-
ham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no
visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has
got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to
tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently.
But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the
gulf between half -past six and midnight? H^ has been

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seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly
into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy.
He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up
courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as
she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her
mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which,
as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning.
He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was
there by the merest chance, having been called to an
urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gun-
boat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and
flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It
was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with
this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl
all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning 1
quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; '
nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships
at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to
take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed
her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard
me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It
was awful in its anger and wretchedness."

Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide.

"What do you mean. Dr. Monygham? Do you
mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?"

'^Quien sabel Who can tell?" said the doctor,
shrugging his shoulders like a bom Costaguanero.
"Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled — he
looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He
had to talk to someone — simply had to. Of course
for all his mad state he recognized me. People know
me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to
be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure
all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance.
He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried

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518 NOSTROMO

to make it out that he wanted merely to warn mc
agamst Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at
some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the
worst despiser of all the poor — of the people. It's very
possible. He honours me with his imdying dislike.
And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough
to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary
Conunission I preside over is not in favour with the
populace. 'Beware of him, sefior doctor. Destroy
him, sefior doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face.
And then he broke out. *That man,' he spluttered,
*has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself,
he had said too much. He must run away now — ^rim
away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about
Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be re-
peated. If he thought she could be xnade to love him
by any ^eans, he would carry her off from the island.
Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He
strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then
I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a
pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his
lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard
something, and must have talked, too, because some of
the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned
him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been
warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town."

"I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs.
Gould, imeasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?"

"He is, since last Simday."

"He ought to be spoken to — at once."

"Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad
Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain
Fidanza."

"I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word
will be enough for a man like Nostromo."

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The doctor smiled sourly.

"He must end this situation which lends itself to-

I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould.

"He's very attractive/' muttered . the doctor,
gloomily.

"He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all
this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first
lady of Sulaco with immense decision.

Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat
and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the
comers of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plas-
tered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an
ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with pre-
caution a small child he had been carrying on his shoul-
der — ^his own and Leonarda's last bom. The pouting,
spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould
had been married for some years now.

He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing
fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with
imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable,
walked down the path.

"What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould.

"A telephone came through from the oflBce of the
mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain
to-night."

Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away.
A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade
of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa
Gould.

"Very well, Basiho," said Mrs. Gould. She watched
him walk away along the path, step aside behind the
flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on
his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between
the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful
of his light burden.

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520 NOSTROMO

The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contem-
plated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People
believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his
nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the
sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked
Lwas the polished callousness of men of the world, the
callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for
oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder
from true sympathy and human compassion. This
want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn
of mind and his biting speeches.

In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the bril-
liant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental im-
precations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the
immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her
seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught
and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor
took his leave.

Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees
planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes
closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of
her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves
brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made

I the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear
luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light
of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs,
she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career
of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of
the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her
magic. %

Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking,
alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the
mine and the house closed to the street like an empty
dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the
question. It had come into her mind that for hfe to

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 521

be large and full, it must contain the care of the past
and of the future in every passing moment of the pres-
ent. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the
dead, and for the good of those who come after. She
thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes —
without moving at all. Mrs. Gould*s face became set and
rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a
great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And
it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask
her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one.
No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away.
No; no one who could be answered with careless sin-
cerity in the ideal perfection of confidence.

The word "incorrigible" — a word lately pronounced
by Dr. Monygham — floated into her still and sad im-
mobiKty. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great i
silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigil^le/
in his hard, determined service of the material interests
to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of ordei
and^stice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the
grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect — ^perfect.
What more could she have expected? It was a colos-
sal and lasting success; and love was only a short mo-^
ment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose de-^
light one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it{
had been a deep grief lived through. There was some-
thing inherent in the necessities of successful action
which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea.
She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the
Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; /
more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and auto-/
cratic than the worst Government; ready to crushf
innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness.
He did not see it: He could not see it. It was not his
fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never

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522 NOSTROMO

have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour
altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved
so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbeldns, the
last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw
clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming,
burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds;
mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mas-
tered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible
success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had

hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps But no!

There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the

dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first

. lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself

1 surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of

) life, of love, of work — ^all alone in the Treasure House

of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression

of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed

eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper,

lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, sb«*

stammered out aimlessly the words —

"Material interest.'*

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CHAPTER TWELVE

NosTROMO had been growing rich very slowly. It was
an effect of his prudence. He could command himself
even when thrown off his balance. And to become the
slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occur- ^
rence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also
in a great part because of the diflBculty of converting
it into a form in which it could become available. The
mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal,
little by little, was surrounded by diflBculties, by the
dangers of inmiinent detection. He had to visit the
Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the
coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune.
The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if
they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He
did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster
was imloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he
feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay.
Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only
manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A
couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much
as through his prudence. To do things by stealth hu-
miliated him. And he suffered most from the concen- ^
tration of his thought upon the treasure.

A transgression, a crime entering a man's existence,
eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a
fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of
all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself,
and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, ^
his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was

523

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624 NOSTROMO

as before, only everything was a sham. But the treas-
ure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious,
mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots.
Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his
cabin — the fruit of a secret night expedition to the
Great Isabel — ^he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if
surprised they had left no stain on his skin.

He had found jneans of disposing of the silver bars in
distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his
coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola
household to be rare and far between. He was fated
to have his wife from there. He had said so once to
Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the
subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutch-
ing a smouldering blade briar-root pipe. There was
plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls
upon anybody.

As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference
for the yoimger of the two. They had some profound
/similarities of nature, which must exist for complete
confidence and understanding, no matter what outward
jdiflFerences of temperament there may be to exercise
itheir own fascination of contrast. His wife would
have to know his secret or else life would be impossible.
He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and
white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under
her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense,
passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words,
touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block,
true daughter of the austere republican, but with Te-
resa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust.
Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for
Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, ex-
acting, suspicious, imcompromising — ^like her soul.
Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 625

placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissive-
less, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, ex-
cited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future.

His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning
from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded
with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great
Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures
moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising
from its foundations on the edge of the cliff.

At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he
thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save
him from detection now.^^ Nothing! He was struck
with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would
kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot oi
his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality,
consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of
men. All of it but that thing which was beyond com-
mon comprehension; which stood between him and
the power that hears and gives effect to the evil inten-
tion of curses. It was dark. Not every man had
such a darkness. And they were going to put a light
there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace,
poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . .
Perhaps somebody had already. . . .

The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the re-
spected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned
patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio,
and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner),
was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck
of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to
insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But
he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought
that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead,
and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, prop-
erly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He

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626 NOSTROMO

.was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own ex-
listence, a thmg of infinite duration in its changes, to
grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for
ever.

And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage,
but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind.
He sailed close to the clifiF of the Great Isabel, throwing
a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the
ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes.
He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the work-
men, shading their eyes o^ the edge of the sheer drop
of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane.
He perceived that none of them had any occasion even
to approach^the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let
alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no
one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned
to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the
empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the
moment he had nothing to fear.

But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a
keei>er came to live in the cottage that was being built
some hundred and fifty yards back from the low light-
tower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded,
jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his
influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the fu-
ture, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible be-
trayal from rich and poor alike — what then? He could
never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater
than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver
into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent sub-
jection, the feeling of his slavery — so irremediable and
profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared
himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor
alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth
on Azuera — weighed heavily on the independent Cap-

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 527

tain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner,
whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in
trading) were so well known along the western sea-
board of a vast continent.

Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in
his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful
limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made
by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the cloth-
ing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain
Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to
his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he al-
lowed it to get about that he had made a great profit
on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was
approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and
fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with
people in a caf6 or two in his measured, steady voice.
Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would
know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born
yet.

Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had
made for himself, under his rightful name, another
public existence, but modified by the new conditions,
less picturesque, more diflBcult to keep up in the in-
creased size and varied population of Sulaco, the pro-
gressive capital of the Occidental Republic.

Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little
mysterious, was recognized quite suflBciently under the
lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station.
He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he
visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his
woimds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose
Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He con-
sented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade
in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a
perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen.

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528 NOSTROMO

He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned
children, growing up and well schooled, calling him
I ancle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too;
and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the
flat face of the San Tome moimtain with a faint frown.
This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a
marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending ex-
pression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended
— but went away before the banquet. He wore it at
the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occi-
dentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency
of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little
photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous
soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capital-
ists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic
Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have imder-
stood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain
Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor com-
rades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning,
with his mind far away, and walked oflf unapproachable,
silent, like a man full of cares.

His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he
watched the stone-masons go oflf to the Great Isabel,
in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough
to add another course to the squat light-tower. That
was the rate of the work. One course per day.

And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of

strangers on the island would cut him completely oflf the

treasure. It had been diflBcult and dangerous enough

before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought

. with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a

5 cowed slave. Then he went ashore.

He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as
usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was
effective enough to alter the situation radically. He

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 629

had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger,
this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thou-
sand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel,
there would be no need for concealment. He would be
able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters —
one of his daughters — ^and stay late talking to the old
Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after
night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker
now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate
in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny
had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleeps

He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell — and the
thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs.
Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibal-
dino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost
of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enor-
mous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers.
His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The
younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice,
had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrat-
ing "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the
word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating
"Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his
fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for
his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was
the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the
sins of the country whose people were blind, vile
esclavos.

On his return from his next voyage, Captain* Fidanza
found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage.
His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not
played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to en-
tertain the idea of any companion whatever, except
his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his
poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which

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530 NOSTROMO

only true aflFection can give, had formally appointed
Linda Viola as nnder-keeper of the Isabel's Light.

"The light is private property/' he used to- explain.
"It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nomi-
nate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the
/^ only thing Nostromo — a man worth his weight in gold,
mind you — ^has ever asked me to do for him."

Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New
Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flat-
roofed, with a colonnade. Captain Fidanza went pulling
his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great
Isabel, openly in the Kght of a declining day, before
all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the
fates. He must estabUsh a regular position. He
would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of
Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but
the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had
his wife's voice.

He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had
landed with Decoud, and afterwards alone on his first
visit to the treasure. He made for the beach at the
other end, and walked up the regular and gentle slope
of the wedge-shaped island. Giorgio Viola, whom he
saw from afar, sitting on a bench imder the front wall
of the cottage, lifted his arm slightly to his loud hail.
He walked up. Neither of the girls appeared.

"It is good here," said the old man, in his austere,
far-away manner.

Nostromo nodded; then, after a short silence —

"You saw my schooner pass in not two hours ago?
Do you know why I am here before, so to speak, my
anchor has fairly bitten into the ground of this port of
Sulaco?"

"You are welcome like a son," the old man declared,
quietly, staring away upon the sea.

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 531

"Ah! thy son. I know. I am what thy son would
have been. It is well, viejo. It is a very good welcome.
Listen, I have come to ask you for '*

A sudden dread came upon the fearless and incorrup-
tible Nostromo. He dared not utter the name in his
mind. The slight pause only imparted a marked weight
and solemnity to the changed end of the phrase.

"For my wife!" . . . His heart was beating
fast. "It is time you "

The Garibaldino arrested him with an extended arm.
"That was left for you to judge."

He got up slowly. His beard, undipped since
Teresa's death, thick, snow-white, covered his powerful
chest. He turned his head to the door, and called out
in his strong voice —

"Linda."
. Her answer came sharp and faint from within; and the
appalled Nostromo stood up, too, but remained mute,
gazing at the door. He was afraid. He was not afraid
of being refused the girl he loved — ^no mere refusal could
stand between him and a woman he desired — but the
shining spectre of the treasure rose before him, claiming
his allegiance in a silence that could not be gainsaid.
He was afraid, because, neither dead nor alive, like the
Gringos on Azuera, he belonged body and soul to the
unlawfulness of his audacity. He was afraid of be-
ing forbidden the island. He was afraid, and said
nothing.

Seeing the two men standing up side by side to await
her, Linda stopped in the doorway. Nothing could alter
the passionate dead whiteness of her face; but her black
eyes seemed to catch and concentrate all the light of the ^
low Sim in a flaming spark within the black depths,
covered at once by the slow descent of heavy eyelids.

"Behold thy husband, master, and benefactor." Old

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632 NOSTROMO

Viola's voice resounded with a force that seemed to fiD
the whole gulf.

She stepped forward with her eyes nearly closed, like a
sleep-walker in a beatific dream.

Nostromo made a superhuman eflFort. "It is time.
Linda, we two were betrothed,'* he said, steadily, in his
level, careless, unbending tone.

She put her hand into his offered palm, lowering her
head, dark with bronze glints, upon which her father's
hand rested for a moment.

"And so the soul of the dead is satisfied."

This came from Giorgio Viola, who went on talking
for a while of his dead wife; while the two, sitting side by
side, never looked at each other. Then the old man
ceased; and Linda, motionless, began to speak.

"Ever since I felt I lived in the world, I have lived
for you alone, Gian' Battista. And that you knew J
You knew it . . . Battistino."

She pronounced the name exactly with her mother's
intonation. A gloom as of the grave covered Nos-
tromo's heart.

"Yes. I knew," he said.

The heroic Garibaldino sat on the same bench bowing
his hoary head, his old soul dwelling alone with its
memories, tender and violent, terrible and dreary-
solitary on the earth full of men.

And Linda, his best-loved daughter, was saying, "I
was yours ever since I can remember. I had only to
think of you for the earth to become empty to my eyes.
When you were there, I could see no one else. I was
yours. Nothing is changed. The world belongs to
you, and you let me live in it." . . . She dropped
her low, vibrating voice to a still lower note, and found
other things to say — torturing for the man at her side,
Her murmur ran on ardent and voluble. She did not

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 533

seem to see her sister, who came out with an altar-cloth
she was embroidering in her hands, and passed in front
of them, silent, fresh, fair, with a quick glance and a
faint smile, to sit a little away on the other side of
Nostromo.

The evening was still. The sim sank almost to the
edge of a purple ocean; and the white lighthouse, livid
against the background of clouds filling the head of the
gulf, bore the lantern red and glowing, like a live ember
kindled by the fire of the sky. Giselle, indolent and
demure, raised the altar-cloth from time to time to hide
nervous yawns, as of a yoimg panther.

Suddenly Linda rushed at her sister, and seizing her
head, covered her face with kisses. Nostromo's brain
reeled. When she left her, as if stunned by the violent
caresses, with her hands lying in her lap, the slave of
the treasure felt as if he could shoot that woman. Old
Giorgio lifted his leonine head.

"Where are you going, Linda?"

" To the light, padre mio."

"Si, si — to your duty."

He got up, too, looked after his eldest daughter; then,
in a tone whose festive note seemed the echo of a mood
lost in the night of ages —

" I am going in to cook something. Aha ! Son ! The
old man knows where to find a bottle of wine, too."

He turned to Giselle, with a change to austere ten-
derness.

"And you, little one, pray not to the God of priests
and slaves, but to the God of orphans, of the oppressed,
of the poor, of little children, to give thee a man like
this one for a husband."

His hand rested heavily ior a moment on Nostromo's
shoulder; then he went in. The hopeless slave of the
San Tome silver felt at these words the venomous fangs

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534 NOSTROMO

of jealousy biting deep into his heart. He was ap-
palled by the novelty of the experience, by its force,
by its physical intimacy. A husband! A husband
for her! And yet it was natural that Giselle should
have a husband at some time or other. He had never
realized that before. In discovering that her beauty
could belong to another he felt as though he could
kill this one of old Giorgio's daughters also. He mut-
tered moodily —

"They say you love Ramirez."

She shook her head without looking at him. Cop-
pery glints rippled to and fro on the wealth of her gold
hair. Her smooth forehead had the soft, pure sheen
of a priceless pearl in the splendour of the sunset, mingl-
ing the gloom of starry spaces, the purple of the sea, and
the crimson of the sky in a magnificent stillness.

"No," she said, slowly. "I never loved him. I
think I never . . . He loves me — ^perhaps."

The seduction of her slow voice died out of the air,
and her raised eyes remained fixed on nothing, as if
indifferent and without thought.

"Ramirez told you he loved you?" asked Nostromo,
restraining himself.

"Ah! once — one evening . . ."

"The miserable . . . Ha!"

He had jumped up as if stung by a gad-fly, and stood
before her mute with anger.

^^ Misericordia Divina! You, too, Gian' Battista!
Poor wretch that I am!" she lamented in ingenuous
tones. "I told Linda, and she scolded — she scolded.
Am I to live blind, dumb, and deaf in this world? And
she told father, who took down his gun and cleaned it.
Poor Ramirez! Then you came, and she told you."

He looked at her. He fastened his eyes upon the
hollow of her white throat, which had the invincible

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 535

charm of things young, palpitating, delicate, and alive.
Was this the child he had known? Was it possible?
It dawned upon him that in these last years he had
really seen very little — ^nothing — of her. Nothing.
She had come into the world like a thing unknown.
She had come upon him unawares. She was a danger.
A frightful danger. The instinctive mood of fierce /
determination that had never failed him before the
perils of this life added its steady force to the violence
of his passion. She, in a voice that recalled to him the
song of running water, the tinkling of a silver bell,
continued —

"And between you three you have brought me here
into this captivity to the sky and water. Nothing else.
Sky and water. Oh, Sanctissima Madre. My hair
shall turn grey on this tedious island. I could hate you,
Gian' Battista!"

He laughed loudly. Her voice enveloped him like a
caress. She bemoaned her fate, spreading unconsciously,
like a flower its perfume in the coolness of the evening!
the indefinable seduction of her person. Was it her
fault that nobody ever had admired Linda? Even
when they were little, going out with their mother to
Mass, she remembered that people took no notice of
Linda, who was fearless, and chose instead to frighten
her, who was timid, with their attention. It was her
hair like gold, she supposed.

He broke out —

"Your hair like gold, and your eyes like violets, and
your lips like the rose; your roimd arms, your white
throat.'* . . .

Impertiu'bable in the indolence of her pose, she
blushed deeply all over to the roots of her hair. She
Was not conceited. She was no more self-conscious than
ft flower. But she was pleased. And perhaps even a

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536 NOSTROMO

flower loves to hear itself praised. He glanced down,
and added, imp)etuously —

"Your little feet!"

Leaning back against the rough stone wall of the
cottage, she seemed to bask languidly in the warmth
of the rosy flush. Only her lowered eyes glanced at
her little feet.

"And so you are going at last to marry our Linda.
She is terrible. Ah! now she will understand better
since you have told her you love her. She will not be so
fierce."

"CAica/" said Nostromo, "I have not told her any-
thing."

"Then make haste. Come to-morrow. Come and
tell her, so that I may have some peace from her scolding
and — perhaps — who knows . . ."

"Be allowed to listen to your Ramirez, eh? Is that
it? You . . ."

"Mercy of God! How violent you are, Giovanni,'*
she said, unmoved. "Who is Ramirez .
Ramirez Who is he?" she repeated, dream-

ily, in the dusk and gloom of the clouded gulf , with a
low red streak in the west like a hot bar of glowing
iron laid across the entrance of a world sombre as a
cavern, where the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores
had hidden his conquests of love and wealth.

"Listen, Giselle," he said, in measured tones; "I
will tell no word of love to your sister. Do you want
to know why?"

"Alas! I could not understand perhaps, Giovanni.
Father says you are not like other men; that no one had
ever understood you properly; that the rich will be
surprised yet. . . . Oh! saints in heaven! I am
weary."

She raised her embroidery to conceal the lower

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 537

part of her face, then let it fall on her lap. The
lantern was shaded on the land side, but slanting
away from the dark column of the lighthouse they
could see the long shaft of light, kindled by Linda, go
out to strike the expiring glow in a horizon of purple
and red.

Giselle Viola, with her head resting against the wall of
the house, her eyes half closed, and her little feet, in
white stockings and black slipjjers, crossed over each
other, seemed to siurender herself, tranquil and fatal,
to the gathering dusk. The charm of her body, the
promising mysteriousuess of her indolence, went out
into the night of the Placid Gulf like a fresh and
intoxicating fragrance spreading out in the shadows,
impregnating the air. The incorruptible Nostromo
breathed her ambient seduction in the tumultuous
heaving of his breast. Before leaving the harbour
he had thrown off the store clothing of Captain Fidanza.
for greater ease in the long pull out to the islands. He
stood before her in the red sash and check shirt as he
used to appear on the Company's wharf — a Mediter-
ranean sailor come ashore to try his luck in Costaguana.
The dusk of purple and red enveloped him, too — close,
soft, profoimd, as no more than fifty yards from that
spot it had gathered evening after evening about the
self-destructive passion of Don Martin Decoud's utter
scepticism, flaming up to death in solitude.

"You have got to hear," he began at last, with per-
fect self-control. "I shall say no word of love to your
sister, to whom I am betrothed from this evening,
because it is you that I love. It is you!" . . .

The dusk let him see yet the tender and voluptuous
smile that came instinctively upon her lips shaped for
love and kisses, freeze hard in the drawn, haggard lines
of terror. He could not restrain himself any longer.

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538 NOSTROMO

Whfle she shrank from his approach, her arms went
out to him, abandoned and regal in the dignity of her
languid surrender. He held her head in his two hands,
and showered rapid kisses upon the upturned face that
gleamed in the purple dusk. Masterful and tender,
he was entering slowly upon the fulness of his possession.
And he perceived that she was crying. Then the in-
comparable Capataz, the man of careless loves, became
gentle and caressing, like a woman to the grief of a
child. He murmured to her fondly. He sat down by
her and nursed her fair head on his breast. He called
her his star and his little flower.

It had grown dark. From the living-room of the
light-keeper's cottage, where Giorgio, one of the Im-
mortal Thousand, was bending his leonine and heroic
head over a charcoal fire, there came the sound of
sizzling and the aroma of an artistic /nftt/ra.

In the obscure disarray of that thing, happening like a
cataclysm, it was in her feminine head that some gleam
of reason survived. He was lost to the world in their
embraced stillness. But she said, whispering into his
ear —

"God of mercy! What will become of me — here —
noW' — ^between this sky and this water I hate? Linda,
Linda — ^I see her!" . . . She tried to get out of his
arms, suddenly relaxed at the sound of that name. But
there was no one approaching their black shapes, en-
laced and struggling on the white background of the
wall. "Linda! Poor Linda! I tremble! I shall die
of fear before my poor sister Linda, betrothed to-day
to Giovanni — my lover! Giovanni, you must have been
mad! I cannot understand you! You are not like
other men! I will not give you up — ^never — only to
God himself! But why have you done this blind, mad,
cruel, frightful thing?"

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THE LIGHTHOUSE ' 639

Released, she hung her head, let fall her hands. The
altar-cloth, as if tossed by a great wind, lay far away
from them, gleaming white on the black ground.

**From fear of losing my hope of you," said Nostromo.

"You knew that you had my soul! You know every-
thing! It was made for you! But what could stand
between you and me? What? Tell me!" she re-
peated, without impatience, in superb assurance.

** Your dead mother," he said, very low.

"Ah! . . . Poor mother! She has always . . .
She is a saint in heaven now, and I cannot give you
up to her. No, Giovanni. Only to God alone. You
were mad — ^but it is done. Oh! what have you done?
Giovanni, my beloved, my life, my master, do not leave
me here in this grave of clouds. You cannot leave me
now. You must take me away — at once — ^this instant
— in the little boat. Giovanni, carry me off to-night,
from my fear of Linda's eyes, before I have to look at
her again."

She nestled close to him. The slave of the San Tome
silver felt the weight as of chains upon his limbs, a pres-
sure as of a cold hand upon his lips. He struggled
against the spell.

" I cannot," he said. " Not yet. There is something
that stands between us two and the freedom of the
world.''

She pressed her form closer to his side with a subtle
and naive instinct of seduction.

"You rave, Giovanni — ^my lover!" she whispered,
engagingly. "What can there be? Carry me off — in
thy very hands — ^to Dona Emilia — away from here.
I am not very heavy."

It seemed as though she expected him to lift her up at
once in his two palms. She had lost the notion of all
impossibility. Anything could happen on this night of

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540 ' . NOSTROMO

wonder. As he made no movement, she almost cried
aloud —

" I tell you I am afraid of Linda ! " And still he did not
move. She became quiet and wily. "What can there
be?" she asked, coaxingly.

He felt her warm, breathing, alive, quivering in the
hollow of his arm. In the exulting consciousness of his
strength, and the triumphant excitement of his mind, he
struck out for his freedom.

"A treasure," he said. All was still. She did not
understand. "A treasure. A treasure of silver to buy
a gold crown for thy brow."

"A treasure?" she repeated in a faint voice, as if
from the depths of a dream. "What is it you say?"

She disengaged herself gently. He got up and looked
down at her, aware of her face, of her hair, her lips, the
dimples on her cheeks — seeing the fascination of her
person in the night of the gulf as if in the blaze of noon-
day. Her nonchalant and seductive voice trembled
with the excitement of admiring awe and ungovernable
curiosity.

"A treasure of silver!" she stammered out. Then
pressed on faster: "What? Where? How did you
get it, Giovanni?"

He wrestled with the spell of captivity. It was as if
striking a heroic blow that he burst out —

"Like a thief!"

The densest blackness of the Placid Gulf seemed to
fall upon his head. He could not see her now. She had
vanished into a long, obscure abysmal silence, whence
her voice came back to him after a time with a faint
glimmer, which was her face.

"I love you! I love you!"

These words gave him an unwonted sense of freedom;
they cast a sj>ell stronger than the accursed spell of the

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 541

treasure; they changed his weary subjection to that
dead thing into an exulting conviction of his power.
He would cherish her, he said, in a splendour as great
as Dona Emilia's. The rich lived on wealth stolen
from the people, but he had taken from the rich noth-
mg — ^nothing that was not lost to them already by their
folly and their betrayal. For he had been betrayed —
he said — deceived, tempted. She believed him. . . .
He had kept the treasure for purposes of revenge; but
now he cared nothing for it. He cared only for her.
He would put her beauty in a palace on a hill crowned
with olive trees — a white palace above a blue sea. He
would keep her there like a jewel in a casket. He would
get land for her — ^her own land fertile with vines and
com — to set her little feet upon. He kissed them. . . .
He had already paid for it all with the soul of a woman
and the life of a man. . . . The Capataz de
Cargadores tasted the supreme intoxication of his gen-
erosity. He flung the mastered treasure superbly
her feet in the impenetrable darkness of the gulf;
the darkness defying — as men said — the knowledge
of God and the wit of the devil. But she must let him
grow rich first — he warned her.

She listened as if in a trance. Her fingers stirred in
his hair. He got up from his knees reeling, weak, empty,
as though he had flimg his soul away.

"Make haste, then," she said. "Make haste,
Giovanni, my lover, my master, for I will give thee
up to no one but God. And I am afraid of Linda."

He guessed at her shudder, and swore to do his best.
He trusted the courage of her love. She promised to be
hrave in order to be loved always — far away in a white
palace upon a hill above a blue sea. Then with a timid,
tentative eagerness she murmured —

"Wher^ is it? Wheye? T^U pa^ th^t, Giovanui."

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de
?en4\

r atU

M2 NOSTROMO

He opened his mouth and remained silent — thunder-
struck.

"Not that! Not that!" he gasped out, appalled at
the spell of secrecy that had kept him dumb before so
many people falling upon his lips again with unimpaired
force. Not even to her. Not even to her. It was too
dangerous. "I forbid thee to ask," he cried at her,
deadening cautiously the anger of his voice.

He had not regained his freedom. The spectre of the
unlawful treasure arose, standing by her side like a figure
of silver, pitiless and secret, with a finger on its pale lips.
His soul died within him at the vision of himself creeping
in presently along the ravine, with the smell of earth, of
damp foliage in his nostrils — creeping in, determined in
a purpose that numbed his breast, and creeping out
again loaded with silver, with his ears alert to every
sound. It must be done on this very night- — that work
of a craven slave!

He stooped low, pressed the hem of her skirt to his
lips, with a muttered command —

"Tell him I would not stay," and was gone suddenly
from her, silent, without as much as a footfall in the
dark night.

She sat still, her head resting indolently against the
wall, and her little feet in white stockings and black
slippers crossed over each other. Old Giorgio, coming
out, did not seem to be surprised at the intelligence as
much as she had vaguely feared. For she was full of
inexplicable fear now — ^f ear of everything and everybody
except of her Giovanni and his treasure. But that was
incredible.

The heroic Garibaldino accepted Nostromo's abrupt
departure with a sagacious indulgence. He remem-
bered his own feelings, and exhibited a masculine penc*
tration of the true state of the case.

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 543

^^Va bene. Let him go. Ha! ha! No matter how
fair the woman, it galls a little. Liberty, liberty.
There's more than one kind! He has said the great
word, and son Gian' Battista is not tame.'' He seemed
to be instructing the motionless and seared Giselle.
. . . "A man should not be tame," he added, dog-
matically out of the doorway. Her stillness and silence
seemed to displease him. "Do not give way to the
enviousness of your sister's lot," he admonished her,
very grave, in his deep voice.

Presently he had to come to the door again to call in
his younger daughter. It was late. He shouted her
name three times before she even moved her head. Left
alone, she had become the helpless prey of astonish-
ment. She walked into the bedroom she shared with
Linda like a person profoundly asleep. That aspect
was so marked that even old Giorgio, spectacled, raising
his eyes from the Bible, shook his head as she shut the
door behind her.

She walked right across the room without looking at
anything, and sat down at once by the open window.
Linda, stealing down from the tower in the exuberance
of her happiness, found her with a lighted candle at her
back, facing the black night full of sighing gusts of wind
and the sound of distant showers — a true night of the /
gulf, too dense for the eye of God and the wiles of the/
devil. She did not turn her head at the opening of the
door.

There was something in that immobility which
reached Linda in the depths of her paradise. The elder
sister guessed angrily: the child is thinking of that
wretched Ramirez. Linda longed to talk. She said
in her arbitrary voice, "Giselle!" and was not answered
by the slightest movement.

The girl that was going to live in a palace and walk on

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544 NOSTROMO

ground of her own was ready to die with terror. Not
for anything in the world would she have turned her
head to face her sister. Her heart was beating madly.
She said with subdued ht^ste —

"Do not sp>eak to me. I am praying."

Linda, disappointed, went out quietly; and Giselle
sat on unbelieving, lost, dazed, patient, as if waiting for
the confirmation of the incredible. The hopeless black
ness of the clouds seemed part of a dream, too. She
waited.

She did not wait in vain. The man whose soul was
dead within him, creeping out of the ravine, weighted
with silver, had seen the gleam of the lighted win-
dow, and could not help retracing his steps from the
beach.

On that imp)enetrable background, obliterating the
lofty mountains by the seaboard, she saw the slave of
the San Tome silver, as if by an extraordinary power
of a miracle. She accepted his return as if henceforth
the world could hold no surprise for all eternity.

She rose, compelled and rigid, and began to speak long
before the light from within fell upon the face of the
approaching man.

"You have come back to carry me off. It is
well! Open thy arms, Giovanni, my lover. I am
coming."

His prudent footsteps stopped, and with his eyes
glistening wildly, he spoke in a harsh voice:

"Not yet. I must grow rich slowly." ... A
threatening note came into his tone. "Do not forget
that you have a thief for your lover."

"Yes! Yes! "she whispered, hastily. "Come nearer!
Listen! Do not give me up, Giovanni! Never,
never! ... I will be patient! . . ."

Her form drooped consolingly over the low casement

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 545

towards the slave of the unlawful treasure. The light in
the room went out, and weighted with silver, the mag-
nificent Capataz clasp)ed her round her white neck in the /
darkness of the gulf as a drowning man clutches at a
straw.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

On the day Mrs. Gould was going, in Dr. Monyg-
ham's words, to "give a tertulia," Captain Fidanza
went down the side of his schooner lying in Sulaco
harbour, calm, unbending, deliberate in the way he sat
down in his dinghy and took up his sculls. He was later
than usual. The afternoon was well advanced before
he landed on the beach of the Great Isabel, and with a
steady pace climbed the slope of the island.

From a distance he made out Giselle sitting in a chair
tilted back against the end of the house, under the win-
dow of the girl's room. She had her embroidery in her
hands, and held it well up to her eyes. The tranquiUity
of that girlish figure exasperated the feeling of perpetual
struggle and strife he carried in his breast. He became
angry. It seemed to him that she ought to hear the
clanking of his fetters — ^his silver fetters, from afar.
And while ashore that day, he had met the doctor with
the evil eye, who had looked at him very hard.

The raising of her eyes mollified him. They smiled in
their flower-like freshness straight upon his heart. Then
slie frowned. It was a warning to be cautious. He
stopped some distance away, and in a loud, indifferent
tone, said —

"Good day, Giselle. Is Linda up yet?"
"Yes. She is in the big room with father."
He approached then, and, looking through the win-
dow into the bedroom for fear of being detected by
Linda returning there for some reason, he said, moving
only his lips —

^46

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 547

"You love me?"

"More than my life." She went on with her em-
broidery under his contemplating gaze and continued
to speak, looking at her work, "Or I could not live. I
could not, Giovanni. For this life is like death. Oh,
Giovanni, I shall perish if you do not take me away."

He smiled carelessly. "I will come to the window
when it's dark," he said.

"No, don't, Giovanni. Not-to-night. Linda and
father have been talking together for a long time to-
day."

"What about?"

"Ramirez, I fancy I heard. I do not know. I
am afraid. I am always afraid. It is like dying a
thousand times a day. Your love is to me like your
treasure to you. It is there, but I can never get enough
of it."

He looked at her very still. She was beautiful. His
desire had grown within him. He had two masters
now. But she was incapable of sustained emotion.
She was sincere in what she said, but she slept placidly
at night. When she saw him she flamed up always.
Then only an increased taciturnity marked the change
in her. She was afraid of betraying herself. She was
afraid of pain, of bodily harm, of sharp words, of facing*
anger, and witnessing violence. For her soul was light i
and tender with a pagan sincerity in its impules. She
murmured —

" Give up the palazzo, Giovanni, and the vineyard on j
the hills, for which we are starving our love."

She ceased, seeing Linda standing silent at the corner
of the house.

Nostromo turned to his aflBanced wife with a greeting,
and was amazed at her sunken eyes, at her hollow
cheeks, at the air of illness and anguish in her face.

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548 NOSTROMO

"Have you been Ul?" he asked, trying to put some
concern into this question.

Her black eyes blazed at him. "Am I thinner?"
she asked.

"Yes — perhaps — a little."

"And older?"

"Every day counts — ^for all of us."

"I shall go grey, I fear, before the ring is on my
finger," she said, slowly, keeping her gaze fastened upon
him.

She waited for what he would say, rolling down her
turned-up sleeves.

"No fear of that," he said, absently.

She turned away as if it had been something final, and
busied herself with household cares while Nostromo
talked with her father. Conversation with the old
Garibaldino was not easy. Age had left his faculties
unimpaired, only they seemed to have withdrawn some-
where deep within him. His answers were slow in com-
ing, with an effect of august gravity. But that day
he was more animated, quicker; there seemed to be
more life in the old lion. He was uneasy for the in-
tegrity of his honour. He believed Sidoni's warning as
to Ramirez's designs upon his younger daughter. And
he did not trust her. She was flighty. He said nothing
of his cares to "Son Gian' Battista." It was a touch
of senile vanity. He wanted to show that he was equal
yet to the task of guarding alone the honour of his house.

Nostromo went away early. As soon as he had dis-
appeared, walking towards the beach, Linda stepped
over the threshold and, with a haggard smile, sat down
by the side of her father.

Ever since that Sunday, when the infatuated and
desperate Ramirez had waited for her on the wharf, she
had no doubts whatever. The jealous ravings of that

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 549

man were no revelation. They had only fixed with
precision, as with a nail driven into her heart, that sense •
of unreality and deception which, instead of bliss and
security, she had found in her intercourse with her prom-
ised husband. She had passed on, pouring indignation
and scorn upon Ramirez; but, that Sunday, she nearly
died of wretchedness and shame, lying on the carved
and lettered stone of Teresa's grave, subscribed for by
the engine-drivers and the fitters of the railway work-
shops, in sign of their respect for the hero of Italian
Unity. Old Viola had not been able to carry out his
desire of burying his wife in the sea; and Linda wept
upon the stone.

The gratuitous outrage appalled her. If he wished to
break her heart — well and good. Everything was per-
mitted to Gian' Battista. But why trample upon the
pieces; why seek to humiliate her spirit? Aha! He
could not break that. She dried her tears. And
Giselle! Giselle! The little one that, ever since she
could toddle, had always clung to her skirt for protec-
tion. What duplicity! But she could not help it
probably. When there was a man in the case the poor
featherheaded wretch could not help herself.

Linda had a good share of the Viola stoicism. She
resolved to say nothing. But woman-like she put pas-
sion into her stoicism. Giselle's short answers, prompted
by fearful cautictti, drove her beside herself by their
curtness that resembled disdain. One day she flung
herself upon the chair in which her indolent sister was
lying and impressed the mark of her teeth at the base
of the whitest neck in Sulaco. Giselle cried out. But
she had her share of the Viola heroism. Ready to faint
with terror, she only said, in a lazy voice, ^'Madre de
DiosI Are you going to eat me alive, Linda?" And
this outburst passed off leaving no trace upon the situa-

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650 NOSTROMO

tion. "She knows nothing. She cannot know any*
thing," reflected Giselle. "Perhaps it is not true,
It cannot be true," Linda tried to persuade herself.

But when she saw Captain Fidanza for the first time
after her meeting with the distracted Ramirez, the
certitude of her misfortune returned. She watched
him from the doorway go away to his boat, asking her-
self stoically, "Will they meet to-night?" She made up
her mind not to leave the tower for a second. When he
had disappeared she came out and sat down by her
father.

The venerable Garibaldino felt, in his own words, "a
young man yet." In one way or another a good deal oil
talk about Ramirez had reached him of late; and his
contempt and dislike of that man who obviously was
not what his son would have been, had made him rest-
less. He slept very little now; but for several nights
past instead of reading — or only sitting, with Mrs,
Gould's silver spectacles on his nose, before the open
Bible, he had been prowling actively all about the island
with his old gun, on watch over his honour.

Linda, laying her thin brown hand on his knee, tried
to soothe his excitement. Ramirez was not in Sulaco.
Nobody knew where he was. He was gone. His talk
of what he would do meant nothing.

"No," the old man interrupted. "But son Gian'
Battista told me — quite of himself — that the cowardly
esclavo was drinking and gambling with the rascals of
Zapiga, over there on the north side of the gulf. He
may get some of the worst scoundrels of that scoim-
drelly town of negroes to help him in his attempt upon
the little one. . . . But I am not so old. No!"

She argued earnestly against the probability of any
attempt being made; and at last the old man fell silent,
chewing his white moustache. Women had their ob-

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THE LIGHTHOUSE 551

stinate notions which must be humoured — ^his poor wife
was like that, and Linda resembled her mother. It was
not seemly for a man to argue. "May be. May be,"
he mumbled.

She was by no means easy in her mind. She loved
Nostromo. She turned her eyes upon Giselle, sitting at
a distance, with something of maternal tenderness, and
the jealous anguish of a rival outraged in her defeat.
Then she rose and walked over to her.

"Listen — ^you," she said, roughly.

The invincible candour of the gaze, raised up all violet
and dew, excited her rage and admiration. She had
beautiful eyes — the Chica — this vile thing of white flesh
and black deception. She did not know whether she
wanted to tear them out with shouts of vengeance or
cover up their mysterious and shameless innocence with
kisses of pity and love. And suddenly they became
empty, gazing blankly at her, except for a little fear not
quite buried deep enough with all the other emotions
in Giselle's heart.

Linda said, "Ramirez is boasting in town that he will
carry you off from the island."

"What folly!" answered the other, and in a perver-
sity bom of long restraint, ghe added: "He is not the
man," in a jesting tone with a trembling audacity.

"No?" said Linda, through her clenched teeth. "Is
he not? Well, then, look to it; because father has been
walking about with a loaded gun at night."

"It is not good for him. You must tell him not to,
Linda. He will not listen to me."

"I shall say nothing — never any more — ^to anybody,"
cried Linda, passionately.

This could not last, thought Giselle. Giovanni must
take her away soon — the very next time he came. She
would not suffer these terrors for ever so much, silver.

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662 NOSTROMO

To speak with her sister made her ill. But she was not
uneasy at her father's watchfulness. She had begged
Npstromo not to come to the window that night. He
had promised to keep away for this once. And she
did not know, could not guess or imagine, that he had
another reason for coming on the island.

Linda had gone straight to the tower. It w^^ time to
light up. She unlocked the little door, and went heavily
up the spiral staircase, carrying her love for the magnifi-
1 cent Capataz de Cargadores like an ever-increasing load
of shameful fetters. No; she could not throw it off.
No; let Heaven dispose of these two. And moving
about the lantern, filled with twilight and the sheen of
the moon, with careful movements she lighted the lamp.
Then her arms fell along her body.

"And with our mother looking on," she murmured.
"My own sister — ^the ChicaT'

The whole refracting apparatus, with its brass fittings
and rings of prisms, glittered and sparkled like a dome-
shaped shrine of diamonds, containing not a lamp, but
some sacred flame, dominating the sea. And Linda, the
^keeper, in black, with a pale face, drooped low in a
wooden chair, alone w:ith her jealousy, far above the
Vshames and passions of the earth. A strange, dragging
pain as if somebody were pulling her about brutaUy
by her dark hair with bronze glints, made her put her
hands up to her temples. They would meet. They
would meet. And she knew where, too. At the window.
The sweat of torture fell in drops on her cheeks, while
the moonlight in the offing closed as if with a colossal
bar of silver the entrance of the Placid Gulf — the sombre
cavern of clouds and stillness in the surf-fretted sea-
board.

Linda Viola stood up suddenly with a finger on her Up.
He loved neither her nor her sister. The whole thing

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seemed so objectless as to frighten her, and also give her
some hope. Why did he not carry her off? What pre-
vented him? He was incomprehensible. What were
they waiting for? For what end were these two lying
and deceiving? Not for the ends of their love. There
was no such thing. The hope of regaining him for
herself made her break her vow of not leaving the tower
that night. She must talk at once to her father, who
was wise, and would understand. She ran down the
spiral stairs. At the moment of opening the door at
the bottom she heard the sound of the first shot ever
fired on the Great Isabel.

She felt a shock, as though the bullet had struck her
breast. She ran on without pausing. The cottage was
dark. She cried at the door, "Giselle! Giselle!" then
dashed round the comer and screamed her sister's name
at the open window, without getting an answer; but
as she was rushing, distracted, round the house, Giselle
came out of the door, and darted past her, running
silently, her hair loose, and her eyes staring straight
ahead. She seemed to skim along the grass as if on
tiptoe, and vanished.

Linda walked on slowly, with her arms stretched out
before her. All was still on the island; she did not know
where she was going. The tree under which Martin
Decoud spent his last days, beholding life like a suc-
cession of senseless images, threw a large blotch of
black shade upon the grass. Suddenly she saw her
father, standing quietly all alone in the moonlight.

The Garibaldino — big, erect, with his snow-white
hair and beard — ^had a monumental repose in his im-
mobility, leaning upon a rifle. She put her hand upon
his arm lightly. He never stirred.

"What have you done?" she asked, in her ordinary
voice.

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654 NOSTROMO

"I hdve shot Ramirez — infamel'^ he answered, with
his eyes directed to where the shade was blackest.
"Like a thief he came, and like a thief he fell. The
child had to be protected."

He did not offer to move an inch, to advance a single
step. He st6od there, rugged and unstirring, like a
statue of an old man guarding the honour of his house.
Linda removed her trembling hand from his arm, firm
and steady like an arm of stone, and, without a word,
entered the blackness of the shade. She saw a stir of
formless shapes on the ground, and stopped short. A
murmur of despair and tears grew louder to her strained
hearing.

"I entreated you not to come to-night. Oh, my
Giovanni! And you promised. Oh! Why — why did
you come, Giovanni?"

It was her sister's voice. It broke on a heartrending
sob. And the voice of the resourceful Capataz de
Cargadores, master and slave of the San Tome treasure,
who had been caught unawares by old Giorgio while
stealing across the open towards the ravine to get some
more silver, answered careless and cool, but sounding
startlingly weak from the ground.

"It seemed as though I could not live through the
night without seeing thee once more — my star, my little
flower."

The brilliant tertulia was just over, the last guests had
departed, and the Seftor Administrador had gone to his
room already, when Dr. Monygham, who had been ex-
pected in the evening but had not turned up, arrived
driving along the wood-block pavement under the
electric-lamps of the deserted Calle de la Constitucion,
and found the great gateway of the Casa still open.

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He limped in, stumped up the stairs, and found the
fat and sleek Basilio on the point of turning oS the
lights in the sala. The prosperous majordomo re-
mained open-mouthed at this late invasion.

"Don't put out the lights," commanded the doctor.
"I want to see the senora."

" The senora is in the Sefior Adminstrador's cancil-
laria," said Basilio, in an unctuous voice. "The Senor
Administrador starts for the mountain in an hour.
There is some trouble with the workmen to be feared, it
appears. A shameless people without reason and de-
cency. And idle, sefior. Idle."

"You are shamelessly lazy and imbecile yourself,'*
said the doctor, with that faculty for exasperation which
made him so generally beloved. "Don't put the lights
out."

Basilio retired with dignity. Dr. Monygham, waiting
in the brilliantly lighted sala, heard presently a door close
at the further end of the house. A jungle of spurs
died out. The Seflor Administrador was oflf to the
mountain.

With a measured swish of her long train, flashing with
jewels and the shimmer of silk, her delicate head bowed
as if under the weight of a mass of fair hair, in which
the silver threads were lost, the "first lady of Sulaco,"
as Captain Mitchell used to describe her, moved along
the lighted corredovy wealthy beyond great dreams of
wealth, considered, loved, respected, honoured, and as
solitary as any human being had ever been, perhaps,
on this earth.

The doctor's "Mrs. Gould! One minute!" stopped
her with a start at the door of the lighted and empty
sala. From the similarity of mood and circumstance,
the sight of the doctor, standing there all alone amongst
the groups of furniture, recalled to her emotional mem-

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656 NOSTROMO

ory her unexpected meeting with Martin Decoud; she
seemed to hear in the silence the voice of that man,
dead miserably so many years ago, pronomice .the
words, **Antonia left her fan here." But it was the
doctor's voice that spoke, a little altered by his excite-
ment. She remarked his shinmg eyes.

"Mrs. Gould, you are wanted./ Do you know what
has happened? You remember what I told you yester-
day about Nostromo. Well, it seems that a lancha,
a decked boat, coming from Zapiga, with four negroes
in her, passing close to the Great Isabel, was hailed
from the cliff by a woman's voice — Linda's, as a matter
of fact — commanding them (it's a moonlight night) to
go round to the beach and take up a wounded man to
the town. The patron (from whom I've heard all this),
of course, did so at once. He told me that when they
got round to the low side of the Great Isabel, they
found Linda Viola waiting for them. They followed
her: she led them under a tree not far from the cottage.
There they found Nostromo lying on the ground with
his head in the younger girl's lap, and father Viola
standing some distance off leaning on his gun. Under
Linda's direction they got a table out of the cottage for a
stretcher, after breaking off the legs. They are here,
Mrs. Gould. I mean Nostromo and — and Giselle.
The negroes brought him in to the first-aid hospital
near the harbour. He made the attendant send for
me. But it was not me he wanted to see — ^it was you,
Mrs. Gould! It was you."

"Me?" whispered Mrs. Gould, shrinking a little.

"Yes, you!" the doctor burst out. "He begged me
— ^his enemy, as he thinks — to bring you to him at once.
It seems he has something to say to you alone."

"Impossible!" murmured Mrs. Gould.

"He said to me, 'Remind her that I have done some-

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THE LIGHTHOUSE «57

thing to keep a roof over her head.' . . . Mrs.
Gould," the doctor pursued, in the greatest excite-
ment. "Do you remember the silver? The silver in
the lighter — ^that was lost?"

Mrs. Gould remembered. But she did not say she
hated the mere mention of that silver. Frankness
personified, she remembered with an exaggerated horror
that for the first and last time of her life she had con-
cealed the truth from her husband about that very
silver. She had been corrupted by her fears at that
time, and she had never forgiven herself. Moreover, I
that silver, which would never have come down if her j
husband had been made acquainted with the news
brought by Decoud, had been in a roundabout way
nearly the cause of Dr. Monygham's death. And these
things appeared to her very dreadful.

"Was it lost, though?" the doctor exclaimed. "I've
always felt that there was a mystery about our Nos-
tromo ever since. I do believe he wants now, at the
point of death "

"The point of death?" repeated Mrs. Gould.

"Yes. Yes. . . . He wants perhaps to tell
you something concerning that silver which "

"Oh, no! No!" exclaimed Mrs. Gould, in a low
voice. "Isn't it lost and done with? Isn't there
enough treasure without it to make everybody in the
world miserable?"

The doctor remained still, in a submissive, disap-
pointed silence. At last he ventured, very low —

"And there is that Viola girl, Giselle. What are
we to do? It looks as though father and sister had "

Mrs. Gould admitted that she felt in duty bound to
do her best for these girls.

"I have a volante here," the doctor said. "If you
don't mind getting into that "

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668 NOSTROMO

He waited, all impatience, till Mrs. Gould reap-
peared, having thrown over her dress a grey cloak
with a deep hood.

t It was thus that, cloaked and monastically hooded
over her evening costume, this woman, full of endurance
and compassion, stood by the side of the bed on which
the splendid Capataz de Cargadores lay stretched out
motionless on his back. The whiteness of sheets and
pillows gave a sombre and energetic relief to his bronzed
face, to the dark, nervous hands, so good on a tiller,
upon a bridle and on a trigger, lying open and idle
upon a white coverlet.

"She is innocent," the Capataz was saying in a deep
and level voice, as though afraid that a louder word
would break the slender hold his spirit still kept upon
his body. "She is innocent. It is I alone. But no
matter. For these things I would answer to no man
or woman alive."

He paused. Mrs. Gould's face, very white within the
shadow of the hood, bent over him with an invincible
and dreary sadness. And the low sobs of Giselle Viola,
kneeling at the end of the bed, her gold hair with cop-
pery gleams loose and scattered over the Capataz 's
feet, hardly troubled the silence of the room.

"Ha! Old Giorgio — ^the guatdian of thine honour!
Fancy the Vecchio coming upon me so light of foot, so
steady of aim. I myself could have done no better.
But the price of a charge of powder might have been
saved. The honour was safe. . . . Sefiora, she
would have followed to the end of the world Nostromo
the thief. ... I have said the word. The spell
is broken!"

A low moan from the girl made him cast his eyes
down.

"I cannot see her, . . . No matter," he went on.

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with the shadow of the old magnificent carelessness in
his voice. "One kiss is enough, if there is no time for
more. An airy soul, senora! Bright and warm, like
sunshine — soon clouded, and soon serene. They would
crush it there between them. Senora, cast on her the
eye of your compassion, as famed from one end of the
land to the other as the courage and daring of the man \
who speaks to you. She will console herself in time.
And even Ramirez is not a bad fellow. I am not angry.
No! It is not Ramirez who overcame the Capataz
of the Sulaco Cargadores.'* He paused, made an eflfort,
and in louder voice, a little wildly, declared —

"I die betrayed — ^betrayed by "

But he did not say by whom or by what he was dying
betrayed.

" She would not have betrayed me," he began again,
opening his eyes very wide. "She was faithful. We
were going very far — very soon. I could have torn
myself away from that accursed treasure for her. For
that child I would have left boxes and boxes of it — ^full.
And Decoud took four. Four ingots. Why? Picardial
To betray me? How coidd I give back the treasure I
with four ingots missing? They would have said I
had purloined them. The doctor would have said that.
Alas! it holds me yet!"

]Mrs. Gould bent low, fascinated — cold with appre-
hension.

"What became of Don Martin on that night, Nos-
tromo?"

"Who knows? I wondered what would become of
me. Now I know. Death was to come upon me un-
awares. He went away! He betrayed me. And you
think I have killed him! You are all alike, you fine
people. The silver has killed me. It has held me. It
holds me yet. Nobody knows where it is. But you are.

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560 NOSTROMO

the wife of Don Carlos, who put it into my hands and
said, 'Save it on your life/ And when I returned, and
you all thought it was lost, what do I hear? 'It was
nothing of importance. Let it go. Up, Nostromo, the
faithful, and ride away to save us, for dear life!"*

"Nostromo!" Mrs- Gould whispered, bending very
low. "I, too, have hated the idea of that silver from
the bottom of my heart."

"Marvellous! — ^that one of you should hate the
wealth that you know so well how to take from the
hands of the poor. The world rests upon the poor,
as old Giorgio says. You have been always good to the
poor. But there is something accursed in wealth.
Sefiora, shall I tell you where the treasure is? To you
alone. . . . Shining! Incorruptible!"

A pained, involuntary reluctance lingered in his tone,
in his eyes, plain to the woman with the genius of sym-
pathetic intuition. She averted her glance from the
miserable subjection of the dying man, appalled, wish-
ing to hear no more of the silver.

"No, Capataz," she said. "No one misses it now.
Let it be lost for ever."

After hearing these words, Nostromo closed his eyes,
uttered no word, made no movement. Outside the
door of the sick-room Dr. Monygham, excited to the
highest pitch, his eyes shining with eagerness, came up
to the two women.

"Now, Mrs. Gould," he said, almost brutally in his
impatience, "tell me, was I right? There is a mystery.
You have got the word of it, have you not? He told
you "

"He told me nothing," said Mrs. Gould, steadily.

The light of his temperamental enmity to Nostromo
went out of Dr. Monygham's eyes. He stepped back
submissively. He did not believe Mrs, Gould. But

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her word was law. He accepted her denial like an
inexplicable fatality aflSrming the victory of Nostromo's
genius over his own. Even before that woman, whom
he loved with secret devotion, he had been defeated
by the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores, the man
who had lived his own life on the assumption of un-
broken fidelity, rectitude, and courage!

"Pray send at once somebody for my carriage,"
spoke Mrs. Gould from within her hood. Then, turn-
ing to Giselle Viola, "Come nearer me, child; come
closer. We will wait here."

Giselle Viola, heartbroken and childlike, her face
veiled in her falling hair, crept up to her side. Mrs.
Gould slipped her hand through the arm of the un-
worthy daughter of old Viola, the immaculate repub-
lican, the hero without a stain. Slowly, gradually,
as a withered flower droops, the head of the girl, who
would have followed a thief to the end of the world,
rested on the shoulder of Dofta Emilia, the first lady
of Sulaco, the wife of the Seftor Administrador of the
San Tomfe mine. And Mrs. Gould, feeling her sup-
pressed sobbing, nervous and excited, had the first
and only moment of bitterness in her life. It was
worthy of Dr. Monygham himself.

"Console yourself, child. Very soon he would have
forgotten you for his treasure."

"Senora, he loved me. He loved me," Giselle whis-
pered, despairingly. "He loved me as no one had ever
been loved before."

"I have been loved, too," Mrs. Gould said in a severe
tone.

Giselle clung to her convulsively. "Oh, seilora,
but you shall live adored to the end of your life," she
sobbed out.

Mrs. Gould kept an unbroken silence till the carriage

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set NOSTROMO

arrived. She helped in the half-fainting girl. After
the doctor had shut the door of the landau, she leaned
over to him.

"You can do nothing?" she whispered.

"No, Mrs. Gould. Moreover, he won't let us touch
him. It does not matter. I just had one look. . . .
Useless."

But he promised to see old Viola and the other girl
that very night. He could get the police-boat to take
him off to the island. He remained in the street, look-
ing after the landau rolling away slowly behind the
white mules.

The rumour of some accident — an accident to Cap-
tain Fidanza — ^had been spreading along the new quays
with their rows of lamps and the dark shapes of tower-
ing cranes. A knot of night prowlers — the poorest of
the poor — ^hung about the door of the first-aid hospital,
whispering in the moonlight of the empty street.

There was no one with the woiuided man but the pale
photographer, small, frail, bloodthirsty, the hater of
capitalists, perched on a high stool near the head of the
bed with his knees up and his chin in his hands. He
had been fetched by a comrade who, working late on
the wharf, had heard from a negro belonging to a lancha,
that Captain Fidanza had been brought ashore mor-
tally wounded.

"Have you any dispositions to make, comrade?"
he asked, anxiously. "Do not forget that we want
money for our work. The rich must be fought with
their own weapons."

Nostromo made no answer. The other did not in-
sist, remaining huddled up on the stool, shock-headed,
wildly hairy, like a hunchbacked monkey. Then, after
a long silence —

"Comrade Fidanza," he began, solemnly, "you have

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refused all aid from that doctor. Is he really a danger-
ous enemy of the people?"

In the dimly lit room Nostromo rolled his head slowly
on the pillow and opened his eyes, directing at the weird
figure perched by his bedside a glance of enigmatic and
profound mquiry. Then his head rolled back, his eye-
lids fell, and the Capataz de Cargadores died without a
word or moan after an hour of immobility, broken by
short shudders testifying to the most atrocious suffer-
ings.

Dr. Monygham, going out in the police-galley to the
islands, beheld the glitter of the moon upon the gulf
and the high black shape of the Great Isabel sending
a shaft of light afar, from under the canopy of clouds.

"Pull easy," he said, wondering what he would find
there. He tried to imagine Linda and her father, and
discovered a strange reluctance within himself. "Pull
easy," he repeated.

* He He 4e 4e 4e

From the moment he fired at the thief of his honour,
Giorgio Viola had not stirred from the spot. He stood,
his old gun grounded, his hand grasping the barrel near
the muzzle. After the lancha carrying off Nostromo
for ever from her had left the shore, Linda, coming up,
stopped before him. He did not seem to be aware of
her presence, but when, losing her forced calnmess,
she cried out —

"Do you know whom you have killed?" he an-
swered —

"Ramirez the vagabond."

White, and staring insanely at her father, Linda
laughed in his face. After a time he joined her faintly
in a deep-toned and distant echo of her peals. Then
she stopped, and the old man spoke as if startled —

^He cried out in son Gian' Battista's voice."

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664 NOSTROMO

The gun fell from his opened hand, but the arm re-
mained extended for a moment as if still suppK>rted.
Linda seized it roughly.

"You are too old to understand. Come into the
house."

He let her lead him. On the threshold he stumbled
heavily, nearly coming to the ground together with
his daughter. His excitement, his activity of the last
few days, had been like the flare of a dying lamp. He
caught at the back of his chair.

"In son Gian' Battiste's voice," he repeated in a
severe tone. "I hearer him — ^Ramirez — ^the miser-
able "

Linda helped him into the chair, and, bending low,
hissed into his ear —

"You have killed Gian' Battista."

The old man smiled under his thick moustache.
Women had strange fancies.

"Where is the child?" he asked, surprised at the pene-
trating chilliness of the air and the imwonted dimness
of the lamp by which he used to sit up half the night
with the open Bible before him.

Linda hesitated a moment, then averted her eyes.

"She is asleep," she said. "We shall talk of her to-
morrow."

She could not bear to look at him. He filled her with
terror and with an almost unbearable feeling of pity.
She had observed the change that came over him. He
would never understand what he had done; and even
to her the whole thing remained incomprehensible.
He said with diflSculty —

"Give me the book."

Linda laid on the table the closed volume in its worn
leather cover, the Bible given him ages ago by an
Englishman in Palermo.

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